Coop Community Virtual Coffee Mornings

Coop Midcounties have been supporting Guy’s Gift over the past couple of years. Support which has meant financial donations, but also fantastic volunteering support, and community interaction.

Community is a big part of what Coop stand for, and this is certainly a big part of what Guy’s Gift is about too. Afterall, who are we without our wonderful community too.

2019 Lantern Walk with members of the Coop Midcounties team, and Father Christmas,

Over the past couple of years, volunteers from Coop have supported group session (back when we could do these in person), supported with administrative tasks, hosted our annual Lantern Walk in December, reviewed policies and procedures, supported with updating our resources,… They are a fantastic team who always take the time to find new ways of working with us.

Guy’s Gift Service Manager, Lisbeth Bakewell attending the Coop Midcounties Virtual Coffee Morning, using a mug with a design by a young person from a local school also being supported by Coop Midcounties

So, a great big thank you to the team at Coop Midcounties. Particularly in finding creative and enjoyable ways to bring charities from across the region together over the last 12 months whilst meeting in-person has been impossible.

We look forward to the Virtual Coffee Mornings and updates from the team, as well as the ongoing invaluable support you give us here at Guy’s Gift.

Virtual Groups

Whilst the Covid-19 pandemic has put a stop to in-person interaction, largely since March 2020, we have had to get creative about how we work.

Last summer, we trialed on-line counselling and support. The team upskilled and put into practice working in new and (for Guy’s Gift) unchartered ways. This has been a huge success for Guy’s Gift, and we have been able to continue providing 1:1 counselling and support for bereaved children and young people across Coventry and Warwickshire.

In November, we trialed running our much loved group support sessions online too. This has enabled children and young people to come together, when there are so many limitations on this elsewhere. Children and young people have benefited from joining with other who have similar experiences and to process their grief.

These sessions are being run by our brilliant counselling and support team, with help from some of our fabulous volunteers too. Each participant in groups receives a resource kit to enable to them to join in with the group activity and to provide tangible ways to remember the person who has died.

If you’d like to find out more about our virtual groups, get in touch via our contact page.

Covid-19 Update: coming out of lockdown

As the government announcement yesterday shines some light at the end of the tunnel in terms of restrictions easing, we are also thinking about when and how we return to in-person support.

We are can’t, at this stage, with any certainty suggest when that might be possible. However, we wanted to update everyone so that you know this is something we are thinking about and we will be moving back towards in-person support as soon as we feel it is safe and appropriate to do so.

For now, don’t forget that all of our normal support options are available remotely, and we continue to meet with children and young people for 1-to-1 and groups support.

COVID-19 Update

With the latest national lockdown upon us, we want to update everyone on what this means for support from Guy’s Gift.

In short, nothing much should change. We are established and ready for working remotely. We have been doing this throughout the autumn term. The only change will be that we will carry out the session with the child or young person whilst they are at home.

The counselling and support team will be making contact with all families this week to confirm how this will work on an individual basis.

We are still taking referral as normal, and the team are available to answer queries or take those referrals between 8:30-4:30 Monday to Thursday. You can reach us by calling 0845 467 3035 or by emailing us on info@guysgift.co.uk. Alternatively, you can use our keep in touch page here on the website.

We hope that home learning goes well for all our families over the coming weeks.

2020 Christmas and New Year revised opening hours

We will be working revised hours over the Christmas and New Year period.

We have fewer staff available than normal during the last week before Christmas, however please do leave us a message and we’ll get back to you as quickly as we can.

We hope that you all enjoy a relaxing Christmas and New Year break.

Our 2020 'Virtual' Lantern Walk

As we draw towards the end of 2020, so our annual Lantern Walk date was approaching. With things as they are, of course we were unable to go ahead with out normal event. We thought long and hard about what we could do because it was very important to us all here at Guy’s Gift to ensure that the date didn’t go by unnoticed. So, we decided that we would deliver an online ‘virtual’ event instead.

This was achieved with the kind support of a team of volunteers from Cooperative Mid Counties who delivered a Lantern Pack to each family attending. This pack included the all important lantern so that families could head out on their own personal Lantern Walk following our event, a bauble to decorate in memory of the person who has died, and a special gift on behalf of Father Christmas.
A big thank you goes out to the volunteers who supported all the drop offs of the Lantern Packs!

We were absolutely thrilled to see so many families join us on 6th December. Families shared who they were remembering, and how they would be doing their own walk this year. Some families joined us whilst they were already on their walk too.

We want to take this opportunity to share some of the wonderful baubles that families have decorated in memory of their loved ones. We also want to share the message that despite not being able to physically spend time together this year, we have still been able to spend time with one another and take comfort in knowing that we are not alone.

Bereavement Resource Kits

We are excited to share with you a brand new project for Guy’s Gift which has been developed as part of our response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Our Bereavement Resource Kits have been developed as part of a project to have resources available for schools and families across Coventry and Warwickshire, which can support their grieving process.

Example Bereavement Resource Kit for Primary Schools

There are times when Guy’s Gift can’t get to meet a chid or young person immediately, and at the moment we are unable visit schools at all.  We are offering both one-to-one and group work remotely using zoom, however this limits things like being able to share a book with one another. Our thought is that if the book is in school with the young person and a copy with their counsellor/bereavement support worker, then we can still share together despite being apart.

These books can be used in school for the child or young persons therapy session, could be taken home to read within the family, or the school may be able to use the books along with our recommended activity ideas within school too.

The very first resources are making their way out to a number of primary and secondary schools over the next couple of weeks, with more to follow soon hopefully.

Example Bereavement Resource Kit for Secondary Schools

This project has been made possible due to various generous donations from charitable trusts across the country who recognise the value books and resources like this can bring. We are still fundraising for this project to be able to provide books for more schools across Coventry and Warwickshire. If you would like to donate to this project you can do so here (please leave a note in the message space to tell us you would like the donation to go towards this project).

The resource kits come contained in a Guy’s Gift branded bag, along with one of our ‘Buddy Bears’. We’ll give a quick shout out here to the team at RT promotions who have done a wonderful job for us over the years with these products.

A member of staff at a local school we spoke with about this project told us that:

“As a Pastoral Manager of a large Primary School, I too am feeling the strain the that current circumstances are having on our children and families. There are more children feeling anxious, especially around the subject of illness and death and sadly more who have experienced the loss of someone they love.

Guys Gift have come up with this brilliant and creative way to try to tackle the new issues that have arisen together by equipping those on the frontline within schools with the tools needed for the job!“

If your school or college would like to be on the list for a resource kit, please complete the request form on the resources section of our website

Of course, this does not take away the value and importance of 1:1 or group sessions with our counselling and support team.
If you would like to make a referral into Guy’s Gift please call us on 0845 467 3035

Coronavirus (COVID-19) Update September 2020

As schools return after the long summer break, and an unusual end to the last academic year, we wanted to let you know a little bit more about what Guy’s Gift will be able to offer.

We are pleased to let you know that we are now taking referrals again, and this can be done in the usual way giving us a call on 0845 467 3035 or by sending an enquiry through the ‘Keep In Touch’ page on the website and we will give you a call back.

We have taken the decision to carry out all sessions (assessments, one-to-one, groups) remotely via telephone or video call for the remainder of 2020. Whilst we know that some schools would welcome us attending in person, we recognise that travelling across the county and visiting lots of different schools would not be sensible under the current climate. We will review this decision in January 2021, and take into consideration both the value of face-to-face sessions alongside the risks associated with COVID-19.

Lastly, we wanted to update you about the annual Lantern Walk, which we will be working towards for December. This will be taking place ‘virtually’ this year, and we will let you know more information about this as the date approaches. Watch this space!

We do hope that everyone is enjoying getting back into school and some sense of normality with this new school year.

Lilly's cake sale fundraiser

Today we are giving a shout out to Lilly and her friends after Lilly’s mum got in touch to let us know about a fabulous fundraiser they did in aid of Guy’s Gift.

Lilly’s mum told us: ‘My daughter held a cake sale on our drive along side her friends and sister, Lilly planned, made flyers and delivered them, shopped for all the ingredients and spent 4 hours cooking and decorating with our support, as she wanted to say thank you for all the help and support that she had received from  Guys Gift after my mum passed away.”

We are so pleased that you were able to support Guy’s Gift and don’t those cakes look great!

Thanks!

Coronavirus (COVID-19) Update

We are pleased to let you know that we are begining to get the team back up and running here at Guy’s Gift.

For now, we still can’t take on new referrals whilst we make sure that all those who are already waiting have been contacted. Once we are in a position to take new referrals once again, we will update you all.

In the meantime, don’t forget that the team are on hand to answer any queries and offer support to families remotely. We now have team members in (on a part time basis) covering all of our normal working hours.

We look forward to being able to safely begin our work with children and young people again as soon as is appropriate.