New project will bring together bereaved families in Northern Ireland

The project, ‘Famlies Learning Together’, is a partnership between Cruse Bereavement Care and Corrymeela Community and has been awarded a grant of £676,384 from the Big Lottery Fund’s Supporting Families programme.

Young Cruse Coordinator Elaine Roub says that each year in Northern Ireland, more than 28,000 children lose someone they love and more than 9,000 school-aged children have lost a parent or sibling.

The Families Learning Together project will offer vital, wrap-around support to 50 families through activity days, residentials at Corrymeela in Ballycastle and ongoing individual support as needed. Importantly, the families themselves having opportunities to support other bereaved families and help educate the community.

Susan McEwen, Head of Programme at Corrymeela, said: “Corrymeela are very excited about this project. This for us is a natural progression of the work of Desney Cromey, a community member who several years ago established the Treetops project working with bereaved families. In fact, it was Desney who first made the connection between Corrymeela and Cruse.”

Anne Townsend, Director of Cruse in Northern Ireland, commented: “The Big Lottery Fund have supported the development of Cruse services for children and young people over the past nine years and we very much look forward to working alongside Corrymeela Community to further expand this support.”

Families Learning Together has evolved because it is what the parents, young people and children who have come to Cruse and Corrymeela over the years have asked for, a chance to break through isolation, shed some burdens, laugh a little and communicate more with each other and with other families.

This year, Corrymeela celebrates its 50th Anniversary and Cruse its 30th anniversary; between them they have 80 years of experience coming alongside people in the midst of bereavement, conflict and trauma. The two organisations share a strong volunteer ethos and a common vision for strengthening families and individuals. The Families Learning Together project will enable them to build on that vision by working, learning and serving families together.