Summer Fun at our Jigsaw Day 🎪 🎡

The start of the school holidays saw some of the children and young people who have used our Children and Young People’s Bereavement Service, the Jigsaw Project, join us here at the Hospice for another fun-filled activity day!

The theme of the day was ‘Carnival/Circus’ and the group enjoyed painting canvases and decorating masks with glitter and stickers, painting plastic ornaments and making paper decorations. They were even treated to some candy floss to take home as well as prizes from our ‘have a go’ tombola.

The children and young people who use our bereavement counselling service usually meet with one of our counselling team on a one-to-one basis for support, so this was a chance to get together with others who have benefited from our service, spending time together for a lively afternoon of play and crafts.

Our Bereavement Support Counselling Team who hosted the day, told us:

“The day flew by and it was fantastic to see the children absorbed in creative activities throughout the day. Some of the adults chose to get creative too and thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

This is the second Jigsaw Project family fun day we have been able to organise this year, and we feel it was a resounding success, with more children and their families coming to meet each other, network, and have some fun together. 

It was a fantastic day, the young people had so much fun, as did many of the parents/guardians, who we noticed were getting into the crafting activities and contributing as well, perhaps revisiting their inner child.

The Jigsaw Days are a way for our service users to form positive experiences with people who are of a similar age group who are dealing with bereavement, adding to their support circle. We also had some young people returning back after our last Jigsaw Day, which was lovely to see.”

The Jigsaw Project works with Children and Young People who have experienced bereavement. We have a specially designed children’s and young person’s area in the Hospice where our experienced counsellors can help children and young people through difficult times. This service is open to referrals from the whole of County Durham and is available to any child aged 5-17 affected by anticipatory grief, grief/loss and bereavement relating to family, relatives and friends.

Referrals to the Jigsaw Project can be made by self-referral from a parent or family member, school, primary health care team, GP’s, mental health care teams or social workers.

For more information about the Jigsaw Project, please visit: www.stcuthbertshospice.com/our-care/bereavement-support/children-bereavement