Lantern Walk Preparation at Codemasters, Southam

On Tuesday, some of the Guy’s Gift team headed over to Codemasters in Southam to prepare for the Lantern Walk happening this Sunday. We had lots of fun turning into Guy’s Gift elves and getting everything ready for the creative activity and lantern-lit walk.

We were also lucky enough to be joined by a wonderful team of volunteers from Electronic Arts (EA). They made easy work of putting together a bunch of EA-themed goody bags for the children and young people coming to the event.

Special thanks to everyone involved for making this event possible. Even Buddy Bear got into the festive spirit.

We are looking forward to welcoming our families on Sunday!

Primary School Open Evening - November 2024

On the 12th November, two of our wonderful volunteers attended a Nuneaton primary school open evening to represent Guy’s Gift.

Jane and Liz (pictured below) were able to explain the services we offer to the families of potential new pupils, to give them the information and advice around the important work we do.

Both Jane and Liz volunteer at our Bereavement Support Groups, so they know first-hand how pupils can benefit from meeting other children in a similar circumstance and the enjoyment that comes from our therapeutic activities.

Jane Lewis (left) and Liz Shorney (right) - Guy’s Gift Volunteers.

Jane and Liz were also able to have meaningful conversations with the school staff members, who may indeed make referrals to us in the future.

We hope Queens C of E Academy benefitted from having the information there for families and staff to learn from, to have a read of our selection of bereavement-focused books, and of course, to meet some of our Buddy Bears.

Thank you for having us!

Guy’s Gift stand (includes information, books and activities).

Children’s Grief Awareness Week 2024

Today marks the beginning of Children’s Grief Awareness Week 2024. This year’s theme is #BuildingHope, which we recognise is incredibly important when working with bereaved children and young people. 

One of our therapeutic activities we wanted to share today is the Tree of Life. This allows children and young people to reflect on their experiences and self-growth, whilst helping them to build hope and strategies for now and into their future.  

We recently used this activity at our Nuneaton Bereavement Support Groups with our teenagers. They thoroughly enjoyed this session, and beautiful conversations and tree collages were formed.

Hope is being able to see the light, despite all the darkness.” – Desmond Tutu  

Tree of Life – therapeutic activity used at Guy’s Gift 

At Guy’s Gift, we provide support and counselling for bereaved children, young people and their families. We offer a combination of groups, 1:1 sessions and support for professionals. We have recently shared some of our therapeutic activities at our most recently Professional Drop-in Session we run for professionals working with bereaved children and young people. We understand the importance of supporting others to feel confident to build hope for the child too. 

The team at Guy’s Gift would love to see your Tree of Life creations this week. Please send them to info@guysgift.co.uk (and state whether we have permission to share them anonymously on our social media).   

Lantern Walk - December 2024

The Guy’s Gift Lantern Walk is an important opportunity for our families to get together and remember a special person who has died at what can be a very important time of year.  

This December, we are inviting families to come together for an indoor creative activity, followed by a lantern-lit walk to a place where we can gather and remember the person who has died. 

We are looking forward to welcoming you all to our event where lots of special memories will be made and fun will be had. P.S. remember to bring your wellies and wrap up warm!

For further information about our event, or if you have not seen an invitation come through, please get in touch using the button below:

Feedback from family who attended our 2023 Lantern Event.

This is an annual event which has helped bereaved families for over 15 years. We would be incredibly grateful if you would like to kindly donate to Guy’s Gift to help us to fund this event.

Here is our Just Giving page: 

World Mental Health Day - 10th October 2024

Did you know that at least one child in every classroom has experienced the death of a parent or sibling in the UK?

Here at Guy’s Gift, we have supported over 4,500 bereaved children, young people and their families across Coventry and Warwickshire. We understand the importance of being there when families need us most.

In light of World Mental Health Day this week, some of our team have visited Royal Leamington Spa College and Rugby College (both part of WCG) to raise awareness around the important service Guy’s Gift offer. It was great to hear how many meaningful conversations were had with students and staff members to help break the stigma around grief and mental health.

This year’s World Mental Health Day theme is “Mental Health at Work”. This is an incredibly important theme which we emphasise at Guy’s Gift. At the end of last month, our Team Leads (Sophie and Rebecca) ran a Professional Drop-in session with the theme of “Self-care for Professionals”. The session focused on ways to look after yourself when working with bereaved children and young people, helping to nurture the mental, physical and spiritual wellbeing of other professionals in this field of work. It was great to see so many attend and this is something we will look to run again in the future. Keep an eye out on our website for future topics and themes!

Join us in making every day a priority for your mental health.

Wolf Run - Autumn 2024

We wanted to say a huge “thank you” to our fantastic team of volunteers who took part in the Autumn 2024 Wolf Run at Offchurch Bury to raise a total of £250 for Guy’s Gift.

As a small, local charity, your support is invaluable to the bereaved children, young people and their families we work with.

We have really enjoyed seeing all the muddy photos - it looked like you all had a great time whilst doing something very worthwhile!

Perhaps you could be our next Wolf Runner?! Have a read below to hear about the Wolf Run experience from a couple of our volunteers who took part:

““The Wolf Run is a fantastic event to get stuck in (literally!) to – it’s hilarious fun slipping and sliding along the muddy course, and the camaraderie is excellent. It was my first experience of that kind of event and a brilliant starting point for me to take part in longer courses in the future. The best part is the atmosphere – everyone is there to have a good time and get through it together. We always looked out for one another and made sure nobody was struggling. Guy’s Gift is an incredibly valuable resource for children and young people, and I’m so happy we were able to contribute something to their amazing cause.” ”

““I would have to say I did it to challenge myself and Guy’s Gift was a charity that gave my son support while he was battling cancer, so it means a lot to help out in any way I can.””

Gambling With Lives Event - July 2024

On Saturday 13th July, the Guy’s Gift team ran a creative bereavement workshop at The Welcombe Hotel, Stratford at a Gambling with Lives residential weekend. The event welcomed families across the UK who have been bereaved of a loved one, following a gambling addiction.

The ‘One More Minute Stars’ pictured below were created by the team to help inspire the children to use their imagination to explore what they would say (or do) if they had one more minute with the person who has died. Thank you to our wonderful team for sharing their stars and the stories behind them.

It has been a privilege to collaborate with Gambling with Lives, who predominantly work with adults, to show the children and young people that their grief is important too. We hope to work with them again in the future.

“My star is in memory of my son Guy, who was fascinated by flamingos during a trip to the zoo. Guy invented his very own bird, which was bit like a flamingo, with all the colours of the rainbow. ”

— Stuart Potter (Guy's Gift Co-Founder and Trustee)

“My star is in memory of my beloved spaniel. I recreated the poppy fields where I used to walk him.”

— Maddie Smith (Guy's Gift Counsellor)

“My star is in memory of my Nanna. A bus journey to visit, flowers she grew around the door, feeding the ducks together, making jam together, and the pattern of her jumper. I’d like to say thank you for the times we shared.

”

— Jackie Potter (Guy's Gift Co-Founder and Trustee)

“The session on Saturday was absolutely fantastic and we had some very happy children rejoin the group after spending time with Guy’s Gift. The team were incredibly flexible with our needs as well as the needs of the children. Overall, the weekend was a real success. We would absolutely love to run another session for the children with yourselves.
”

— Emily Beck (Gambling with Lives Community & Events Manager)