The following offer free bereavement support with a counsellor as well as some group support.

We have found it very helpful to have someone to talk to outside of friends and family. We know that friends and family often don’t know what to say and they just want you to feel better, so it can be easier to put on a ‘brave face’, especially after the first few weeks. With a trained counsellor, you don’t need to worry about upsetting them so you can tell them what you really feel. It is important to be able to talk openly.

We know that most of these services usually ask you to wait until 8-12 weeks after a bereavement, which can feel like an impossible amount of time. They will have wait lists, so it is often worth putting your name down even before you think you may need support.

The links below also all provide extensive information and further resources about grief, especially what to do in the early weeks and months.

Cruse - free telephone support 1 to 1 and local branches hold drop in sessions. Cambridge Cruse holds regular coffee mornings at the Wesley Methodist Church on the first four Wednesdays of the month 10-12pm. Contact Cruse for more information.

Local hospices will offer free bereavement support if your loved one was supported by a hospice. Arthur Rank hospice offers 1 to 1 support with trained volunteers (you have to self refer). Sue Ryder has online support. You can also visit Hospice UK for more information.

Maggie’s the cancer charity can offer bereavement support for those whose loved ones died from cancer.

We have found many supportive communities online where the bereaved can come together for support. These are a few which we have found particularly helpful.

Grief Works - this is a community established by Julia Samuel, the psychotherapist and grief specialist; author of book ‘Grief Works’ among others. They hold regular free online community sessions with Julia on different topics around grief. They have also created an app which you pay for, called the Grief Works Programme. This provides structured therapeutic support to help you through your grief, and the cost is discounted if you attend one of their online sessions.

Widowed and Young (WAY) – this is an invaluable community for anyone who was widowed at the age of 50 and below. There is a supportive online community and local groups arrange get togethers in person. WAY is particularly helpful if you have children at home.

The Loss Foundation is a small charity dedicated to supporting those bereaved from cancer and now Covid loss. They run free online support sessions around specific loss which can be particularly helpful, as well as group fundraising activities. They also provide a large number of grief resources on their website.

Karen Sutton, The Widow Coach, runs a supportive community for anyone who has been widowed – mostly women. Karen is a widow herself and helps a lot of widows across the world, especially in the UK and US. She offers a membership option which provides regular online meetings with a large widow community. She also offers a structured 12 month group coaching programme ‘Finding Hope in Widowhood’ which provides information and support around different topics and can really help you to face up to the reality of life as a widow. She also hosts a popular free podcast.

There are an increasing number of podcasts now dedicated to talking about grief and widowhood. These can be especially helpful when reading feels impossible. These are the ones which we have listened to more than others:

The Widow Podcast - Karen Sutton talks specifically about grief in widowhood and the challenges this creates.

Griefcast – the ‘original’ grief podcast. Here Cariad Lloyd talks to well known figures about different types of grief they have experienced.

Good Mourning – two Australian women who met after their mothers died talk about the reality and messiness of grief.

Widow We Do Now? - a more irreverent take on widowhood from two Americans who met after their husbands died.

The Widowhood - started by two young widows from the UK.

Therapy Works – Julia Samuel’s podcast where she has therapeutic conversations with people about the challenges they are facing. Not specifically about grief, but there are some particularly useful and relevant episodes, and it is interesting about the process of therapy.

There is a bewilderingly large selection of books on grief and bereavement. The following we found helpful:

About grief

Cariad Lloyd ‘You Are Not Alone’

Joanne Cacciatore ‘Bearing the Unbearable’

Megan Devine ‘It’s OK That You Are Not OK’

Lisa Schulman ‘Before and After Loss’

Julia Samuel ‘Grief Works’

David Kessler ‘Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief’

Cathy Renzenbrink ‘A Manuel for Heartache, How to Feel Better’

Michael Rosen’s Sad Book

Grief memoirs (all about being widowed)

Decca Aitkenhead ‘All At Sea’

Sasha Bates ‘Languages of Loss’

Rev. Richard Coles ‘The Madness of Grief’

Jo Cundy ‘Travelling Solo, and celebrating life’s new opportunities’

Joan Didion ‘A Year of Magical Thinking’

Richard E. Grant ‘A Pocketful of Happiness’

CS Lewis ‘A Grief Observed’

Kat Lister ‘The Elements’

Fiction/Poetry

John O’Donohue ‘Benedictus’

Mary Oliver ‘Long Life, essays and other writings’

Jan Richardson ‘The Cure for Sorrow – A Book of Blessings for Times of Grief’

In Memorium - Thirty Poems of Bereavement anthology by Candlestick Press

Max Porter ‘Grief Is The Thing with Feathers’