Honeysuckle FC: helping men cope with the devastation of losing a child
Many clients have told me how losing a child feels like losing a big part of yourself. It leaves you feeling broken and unable to carry on. Clients and those involved in bereavement services also say that feeling of loss never leaves. Overwhelmingly, most say the experience of doing something to honour their lost child helps with the healing process and can also help others going through their own loss.
I had the privilege of speaking to the Honeysuckle Bereavement Team at Liverpool Women's NHS Foundation Trust and the Liverpool FC Foundation which set up and continue to run Honeysuckle FC, a football team for bereaved men. The group have a 'dressing room chat' at the start of each session for those who want to speak to share how they are feeling and how they are coping, or not. They then go out on the pitch and play football.
Very touching is that three of the fathers who attended the team's very first training session have since trained to be peer support volunteers and now help to run the same sessions they first came to. The sense of camaraderie around the group is fantastic and the tireless work that goes on to run the scheme is inspiring. It can be a lifeline for newly bereaved men to come to their first session and be reassured that how they are feeling is normal, that the group have mostly been exactly there themselves and to be surrounded by people who will listen and support them.
Read more about Honeysuckle FC
Outside of a group setting, clients also tell me how important it is to have their own individual ways of remembering a lost child. One of my first clients lost her baby daughter due to a failure by the hospital to insert a cervical cerclage in time. She used some of her compensation to purchase two memorial benches; one has been installed in her local park and the other in her garden. Her two young children now sit and play on the bench that honours their late sister.
I feel a wave of pride for my client and also for all the parents who keep fighting and put one step in front of the other, despite enduring one of the worst experiences in life. Certainly, honouring the memory of their lost child's memory seems to help with the grieving process and ensures they are always remembered.
Twins Trust, one of our chosen charities, has published a Navigating Grief booklet to support parents living with the loss of a baby or babies.
Read about our birth injury and baby loss claims, including information about relevant charities.