TWENTY-one charities which provide people in Wales with bereavement support will share £3 million in funding from the Welsh Government.

The charities will be granted the funding over the next three years, Torfaen MS and deputy minister for mental health and wellbeing Lynne Neagle has announced.

The organisations which will receive funding cover a wide range of areas, including providing help to children and young people who have lost a loved one, and funding training for volunteers to help them support the bereaved.

“The funding will, I hope, enable charities and organisations to provide further comfort to those grieving,” said Ms Neagle.

“The work of all 21 organisations awarded is so vital, and I want to pay tribute to the work they do.

“Bereavement affects us all in different ways. It’s important that the £3 million funding covers a cross section of organisations who will utilise the money in their own way to provide emotional help, advice and support.”

In October last year, the deputy minister set out the National Framework for the Delivery of Bereavement Care in Wales, which included £1 million-a-year of support for charities and support groups to apply for.

The first 21 charities will receive funding via the grant over the next three years.

The deputy minister visited one of these charities, 2Wish, to find out more about how they will use the grant funding.

Rhian Mannings MBE, founder and chief executive of 2Wish, said: “This funding will help us make our service available to everyone as it is vital that at such a difficult time that support is immediately available.

“Here at 2Wish we have been working for over a decade to support Welsh families who have lost a child.

“We’ve seen first-hand the trauma these families go through and the help that they so desperately need at this time of crisis.

“It is great to see the minister is announcing this grant funding, so that we, and charities like us, can carry on this vital work and offer immediate help and counselling.”

The charities which have been awarded funding from the Bereavement Support Grant are:

  • Sandy Bear Children’s Bereavement Charity
  • Nightingale House Hospice
  • Paul Sartori Foundation
  • Tŷ Hafan Children’s Hospice
  • Sands (Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Society)
  • Aberystwyth and District Hospice at Home Volunteers (HAHAV)
  • Mid & North Powys Mind
  • Tẏ Gobaith and Hope House Children’s Hospices
  • Platfform
  • BAME Mental Health Support
  • Cruse Bereavement Support
  • Marie Curie
  • Diverse Cymru
  • Age Cymru
  • City Hospice, Cardiff
  • Ponthafren Association
  • 2Wish
  • ACE – Action in Caerau and Ely
  • Llamau
  • The DPJ Foundation
  • Options Pregnancy Crisis and Post Abortion Service (IPAC Options)