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Flower of Remembrance

Children who have been bereaved quite often struggle to find the words to express and externalise difficult feelings and emotions surrounding their loss.

When working with bereaved children at Alice House we use many different creative resources to help them talk about their loved one who has died, identify, express and manage difficult feelings and emotions and find ways to remember that person.

“It is lovely to have this kind of help from our local community, there are so many skills out there that can be used to help others in so many different ways.”

Jan Grocott, Head of Counselling and Support Services at Alice House

One of the ways for our young service users to remember is by decorating a beautiful butterfly with colours, glitter, sequins or anything else the child wishes to use.   The child writes a special message to the person who has died and then chooses the space they wish it to occupy on our lovely flower of remembrance.

However when we moved our children’s counselling room to a larger and more accessible location within the building, we unfortunately no longer had our flower painted on the wall and we made several enquiries to find someone who could re-create the design in our new room.

Thankfully, help came in the form of Michael Taylor from Hartlepool College of Further Education who very kindly said he would be able to paint a new flower for us.  He also said he could include a couple of butterflies and a dragonfly in the artwork.

Mick and one of his students Nathan Conville came along recently and spent a full day (in the middle of the recent heatwave)  painting the artwork on the wall  using paints generously provided by Charles Dickens, from Tower Street in Hartlepool.

Jan Grocott, Head of Counselling and Support Services at Alice House said, “It is lovely to have this kind of help from our local community, there are so many skills out there that can be used to help others in so many different ways.”  Jan continued, “The first butterflies have now taken up residence on the flower of remembrance and I am sure there will be many more over the years to come.”

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Hartlepool Hospice Ltd (known locally as Alice House Hospice and formerly Hartlepool & District Hospice)
Registered office: Alice House, Wells Avenue, Hartlepool, TS24 9DA.