Family Support Team Archives - St Gemma's Hospice

Silk Painting with the Young People’s Service

June 7, 2023Blog Latest News Patient Stories

The St Gemma’s Young People’s Service runs all kinds of activities for the children and young people they support, including workshops, day trips and weekends away. These activities provide those receiving support an opportunity to cope with their feelings and spend time with others who are going through the same thing.

On Friday 2nd and Saturday 3rd June, the Young People’s Service team organised a lovely silk painting workshop in collaboration with artist Donna Fox.

Wendy, Young People’s Bereavement Worker, told us more about the workshops:

“The St Gemma’s Young People’s service collaborated with artist Donna Fox to work with a group of young people, staff and volunteers over 2 days to create a hot wax Batik tree of life silk painting. The children and young people made their own sun catchers to take home, and their special memories and ideas were expressed in a leaf on the tree or a block around the border of the main silk painting – surrounding a garden feature and tree of their hands.

“Everyone had a great time coming together, being creative and learning new skills. Some words used by the group to describe the whole experience were ‘calming’, ‘mesmerising,’ ‘relaxing’ and ‘fun’!

“Huge thanks to Donna Fox for her inspiration and expert guidance. We can’t wait to see the finished silk!”

Well done to everyone involved for making these fantastic art workshops happen! Thank you to Arts Council England, the national development agency for creativity and culture, for partly funding this very special project.

We look forward to holding events like this in our new, dedicated space in the Hospice gardens; visit www.st-gemma.co.uk/young-peoples-cabin to find out more about the sustainable building, specifically designed with bereaved children in mind, that will be used by hundreds of youngsters supported by St Gemma’s bereavement team each year.

The St Gemma’s Young People’s Service supports children and young people from across Leeds where someone in the family is seriously ill or has died.

Cheryl’s Story

May 27, 2021Hospice Stories

Cheryl has volunteered as a bereavement counsellor at St Gemma’s for almost five years, providing invaluable support for people with a loved one who is seriously ill or has died.

Cheryl has been volunteering with St Gemma’s for nearly 5 years. Originally Cheryl she trained as a teacher and then as a counsellor. Cheryl has volunteered in various counselling roles over the last 30 years. She gets a lot out of her volunteer role and enjoys getting to know people and supporting them through a difficult time.

Cheryl supports up to four clients per week with an hour-long session. Sessions have been running on zoom or by phone over the last year. At the first session Cheryl will initially meet up with a client and both will decide whether they feel it would be helpful to continue with counselling. The support involves listening to the clients and supporting them in exploring their grief. Sometimes, the process can be helped with the use of visual or tactile aids such as stones, pen and paper, or other aids to expressing themselves.

Cheryl is looking forward to returning to face-to-face support. However despite this, she sees the positive side to offering online sessions to clients who have issues with accessibility.

As well as group supervision offered by the Hospice, Cheryl has attended a number of training sessions to support her role including a session on Sikh spirituality, rituals and beliefs and more recently on the effect of the pandemic the role of a bereavement counsellor.

Cheryl says “I really enjoy volunteering at St Gemma’s, it’s a good place to volunteer and we are well supported.”

Christmas Isn’t Always Merry and Bright

October 28, 2019

As winter approaches and the festive season begins, we know how difficult it can be for people who are grieving or facing Christmas alone. It doesn’t matter if it’s your first year without someone who has died or you were bereaved long ago. Dealing with a serious illness or the death of someone close can […]