Our impact 2020/21
It was a year like no other, but despite all the challenges Winston’s Wish adapted to provide support for bereaved children, young people, families and professionals during the Covid-19 pandemic. Below we celebrate our achievements and look ahead to the future.
Winston’s Wish actually save lives – they can put children and young people, like me, on a path where even though they’ve experienced the hardest thing in their lives, they can still push on and be hopeful.
Hattie, age 18
A message from our CEO
This year has been hugely challenging for Winston’s Wish, as it has for everyone. We went into the year knowing that funding would reduce significantly due to the pandemic and yet the number of children being bereaved was very sadly going to increase substantially. In order to continue to be there for the families that need us, we needed to not only weather the storm, but we had to emerge stronger. I am pleased to say that we have managed to achieve this, whilst also supporting over 18,000 children and young people and training over 60,000 professionals.
We have managed to extend the support we provide, with digital delivery allowing us to remove all geographical boundaries, as well as lay foundations for future growth as the demand increases. A service redesign has allowed us to reduce our waiting times from weeks to a maximum of five days – a phenomenal change and one that our families are benefiting from daily – and to take young people up to the age of 25.
As always, there is a lot more to do. We move into the new year positively, knowing that our supporters and funders are alongside us and for this we could not be more grateful.
Our achievements in 2020/21
Our new service model
In 2020/21 we redesigned our services to offer a national blended support model which mixes remote, digital and face-to-face bereavement support for children and young people up to the age of 25.
The Covid-19 pandemic and UK lockdown forced us all to stay home and prevented our practitioners from meeting families face to face. We quickly pivoted to offer remote support and confirmed a belief we already held – we can support families, children and young people really well remotely. Whether that be telephone conversations with parents or carers; video meetings with children, young people or whole families; live chat conversations with professionals or email support to a young person.
Our new service model allows us to offer a truly equitable, national bereavement support service, to help more children and to offer that support more quickly. We can now offer the same support to all children and young people up to the age of 25, wherever they are in the UK, within five days from referral.
Winston’s Wish helped me accept and recognise when I was sad and how to communicate that with my family. I never met Clare in person, but she helped me trust again. When my mum died, I lost complete trust and hope about the future. They gave me hope that things can get better.
Hattie, age 18
Increasing our online information and resources
In 2020/21, we saw a huge 55% increase in traffic to our websites with 438,138 visitors across the year.
As the pandemic hit and the UK went into lockdown, we saw a huge increase in people searching online for bereavement information, guidance and resources. Our team reacted quickly to provide online guidance on supporting bereaved children and young people cut off from their usual support networks and we increased the free resources available on our website.
We also saw a 36% increase in visitors to our young people’s website, help2makesense.org, as grieving young people looked online for help.
I was unaware of how many children had also lost a parent at such a young age; I no longer felt alone when reading the stories of other children on the Help2MakeSense website.
Zoe, age 19
Bereavement training for professionals
An amazing 62,686 professionals completed one of our childhood bereavement training courses in 2020/21, an increase of 329% compared to last year.
We launched new free online training modules for schools in May 2020, developed in partnership with Learning Nexus, which were taken by 20,055 professionals. Funding from the Coronavirus Community Support fund, distributed by The National Lottery Community Fund, allowed us to offer free bespoke training to 2,444 professionals from schools and youth groups. We also adapted our three-day training courses and one-day SEND training so we could continue to offer them online during the pandemic.
These professionals now have a better understanding of how to support bereaved children and young people in their care.
The course was very informative and interesting and has given me the confidence to support children who are dealing with bereavement in a much more positive way.
Teacher
Launching our PSHE lessons
In January we launched our free PSHE lessons on loss and bereavement which were awarded the Quality Mark by the PSHE Association and downloaded by 2,329 education professionals in the first three months.
These resources have been written by teachers and bereavement experts to help teachers talk about bereavement and loss with their pupils from Key Stages 1 –4. We have created detailed lesson plans, PowerPoint presentations and resources, plus training to support the safe delivery of the lessons.
By helping teachers to talk about bereavement and loss with their students, we hope children and young people are better equipped to cope with a bereavement and understand how to support their friends.
We are very pleased to award our Quality Mark to these important lessons from Winston’s Wish. The lessons approach learning about the topics of loss, bereavement and grief in a developmentally appropriate, relevant way.
Claire Keech, PSHE Association Subject Specialist
Tom’s story
I was 14, when my dad died from myeloma, a cancer that affects the blood and bones.
My dad and I were very close. We spent a lot of time together, just the two of us, and he would take me camping, play cricket with me and was very supportive in every aspect of my life.
I didn’t know he was ill and when I found out, he died around two weeks later. Because it was so sudden, it felt like I didn’t have time to say goodbye. I started to worry that I would forget him – his smile, his voice and all the happy memories – and not be able to share these with my future family.
That’s when my mum called Winston’s Wish and I started video call sessions with a practitioner. They helped me to come to terms with my feelings. With my Bereavement Practitioner, I was able to work through my grief and find ways to cherish special memories of my dad.
Key numbers from 2020/21
Our impact
We understand grief and we have been supporting bereaved children, their families, and the professionals who support them since 1992. We know from our experience that, with the right support, at the right time, delivered in the right way, children who have been bereaved can go on to live full and healthy lives.
By regularly analysing our support, we know that the children and young people we have supported have shown measured improvements in behaviour, wellbeing and mental health, bereavement-related issues, relationships with family and friends, and life at school.
Dave’s story
When Isla, Finn and Erin’s mum, Amy, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in March 2020 they’d hoped they would still have many years together. Sadly this didn’t happen and she experienced a sharp decline and she died just seven months later.
Their dad, Dave, received support over the phone from the Winston’s Wish Helpline. He wanted help with telling the children about the news when Amy was first diagnosed. Help with telling them that their mum was not going to get better. Amy and Dave were sent Winston’s Wish books and resources in the post to help them explain things to their three children.
“The lady on the Helpline who answered was a total saviour”, said Dave. “She helped me order my thoughts and gave me a plan about how to speak to the children.”
Our figures from 2020/21
Income
Total income raised in the year was £1,837,759 which included investment income of £11,259 and income from charitable activities of £142,411.
Expenditure
Total expenditure in the year was £1,815,135 of which £349,835 was spent on the direct costs of fundraising. This means that of every £1 raised, 81p was spent on the delivery of our service.
Thank you to all our supporters
Whilst the COVID-19 pandemic has caused a drop in our annual income, as people and organisations rally to balance their priorities and responsibilities, we have been completely bowled over by the level of commitment and support that we have received from so many individuals and organisations. Your donations are always gratefully received, but your support during a global pandemic, when people’s income is dropping and their employment is uncertain, is something that we have been incredibly humbled by.
Your support, at this unprecedented time, has enabled us to support many thousands of children through one of the hardest times they have ever known.
Thank you.
Some of our trust and corporate partners
Looking to the future
Providing a national service
Our new blended service model allows us to support children, young people and families wherever they are and in the way that is best for them. With this knowledge and our new skills, we will extend our reach to areas of the country that are not served by local childhood bereavement organisations and to families who prefer to receive support remotely.
However, we will not lose sight of our past. ‘Camp Winston’, as it was originally called, is remembered fondly by thousands of children, families and volunteers, and has been emulated by many organisations, for a very good reason. We know that bringing children and families together who have had a similar experience is life changing for them. We will find new ways to achieve this, accessible to more families from across the UK.
Our Young Ambassador programme
We have big plans to involve our Young Ambassadors in all aspects of our work in 2021/22. In recent months we have welcomed a number of new Young Ambassadors, all of whom have been supported by Winston’s Wish, and they are excited to help us grow and develop.
As well as sharing their advice and stories, they will be taking part in media interviews to raise awareness, helping to interview new staff members and helping us to develop our bereavement support service. As young people who have been through our service, they are the perfect people to help us work out how we can best support bereaved children and young people in the future.
Increasing digital support
We are very aware that true digital support, as children and young people want to receive it, is not just a video call or an online chat conversation. It needs to be so much more. For that reason, we are working with a group of young people and colleagues in the children and young people’s mental health sector, to determine what we can offer in the future.
The needs of bereaved children and young people have changed a lot since our foundation in 1992, so we must change too.
Equality, diversity and inclusion
We’re putting equality, diversity and inclusion at the heart of everything we do at Winston’s Wish to help us achieve our vision of a society in which every child can get the help they need when someone close to them dies. We want to deliver accessible and inclusive bereavement support services that are relevant and appropriate to bereaved children and families. We want to be the best place to come and work and an employer of skilled and talented staff from a range of diverse backgrounds.
We know we have a lot of work and learning to do, but we have created an EDI Action Plan and have a group of dedicated staff focused on implementing that plan.
