It’s a very exciting day for Let’s Talk About Loss. After a long time of deliberation, consultation and (let’s be real) a little bit of it’s-really-scary-so-I’m-avoiding-it-procrastination, we’ve announced our new age range and I’m excited/relieved/a bit terrified…
We now support 18-35 year olds
Yep, that’s right. From today, 17 June 2019, Let’s Talk About Loss supports young people aged 18-35 who have been bereaved. It doesn’t matter when you were bereaved or who you lost, if you’re between 18 and 35 you can come along to one of our meet ups and connect with other young people who have also lost someone close to them.
We hope that this age range update will align us better alongside all the fantastic charities that exist to support bereaved adults and children, and help us grow and reach more young people who desperately need to start talking about their loss and getting the right support.
We’re working on updating our website so that it contains fantastic signposting information, so that we can work with and alongside all the fantastic bereavement charities and services that already exist, recommending the best support to people who need more than our peer-to-peer meet up support. We’re also in conversation with some of the UK’s leading bereavement charities to look at how we can work with them, so watch this space as lots of exciting things are to come.
Why this age range?
I’m sure lots of you are thinking – what was wrong with 16-30? Why have you changed the age range to 18-35? Fair questions! I’m going to try and answer them as best I can here.
Why we’ve moved from 16 to 18: There are two reasons for raising the minimum age for our meet up from 16 to 18. The first is to protect the young people that we at Let’s Talk About Loss are supporting. When we started out, we were just a group of friends meeting up and chatting about loss. Now, as Let’s Talk About Loss grows, we are running groups across the country and both our volunteers and our attendees need to be safe, secure and supported. With little resource and funding, we are unable to put into place a full safeguarding policy and train our volunteers. Therefore, our groups can only be for adults and not children, as the law dictates. If you are aged 16 or 17 and are currently in a meet up group, please do make your age known to your host or email me so we can best support you.
The other reason to change to 18 is to recognise the wealth of support available for those under the age of 18 from a whole host of fantastic bereavement charities. There are children’s bereavement services offered across the country and all doing amazing work to support those aged 18 and below who have been bereaved. We can’t replicate their phenomenal work, so instead we would like to sit alongside it and refer those younger than 18 to another service that can provide them the support they need. We’ll be updating our signposting information on the website very soon to include a list of the charities we admire and work alongside.
Why we’ve moved from 30 to 35: Lots of you have been getting in touch for many years to tell us that being a young person doesn’t stop at 30. In truth, being a young person doesn’t have numbers attached to it at all – you are only as old as you feel! But we do have to be true to our core purpose which is to support young people who have been bereaved. After extensive consultation with people within and outside of the 16-30 age range, it was decided that “young person” in 2019 did not end at 30, and so the decision to raise the maximum age to 35.
In a group with such a big age range, we need to protect our core purpose and the young people attending our groups, to keep it a safe space for young people. That’s why we’re strict about our age range and may ask you for your age before you attend a meet up. I’m sure any of you turning 36 will be disappointed, but please remember that there are so many amazing charities supporting adults who have been bereaved, that you will not be alone. If you’d like recommendations on who to contact for support, please email us and we can help point you in the right direction for support.
Finally, please remember that when we speak about our age range, it’s only for our meet up groups! Anyone of any age can access our blogs and even write a blog yourself! We think it’s amazingly helpful to hear from people of all ages, especially when you’re young and grieving. If you’re outside the 18-35 age range and would like to get involved, please consider sharing your story with us for our blog. You can email blog@letstalkaboutloss.org to submit!
Why now?
Why change the age range now? Put simply, because you want us to, and because there is no reason to hang around. We want to listen to our supporters and followers, and offer the best support we can to the people that need it. You’ve told us that the age range should be 18-35, and we’ve listened. As we prepare to register as a charity later this year, we wanted to make sure that we were in the best place to do so, and so we’ve made this change before we set out our official charity documentation and set it in stone, so to speak.
What next?
My first job is to find every last nook and cranny where our age range is still published as 16-30. Please bear with me while I do this guys – in three years Let’s Talk About Loss has expanded beyond my wildest dreams and the internet is a wonderful but massive place, so I’ll be digging them all out and updating the age range everywhere as fast as I can.
After that, we have loads more exciting things coming your way. Look out for new meet up groups launching soon in Manchester, Birmingham and Exeter as we expand across the UK, and for more updates about how we plan to grow once we are formally registered as a charity. It’s a busy but really exciting time for Let’s Talk About Loss and I’m thrilled that you’re here cheering us on! Thank you as always for your support and please get in touch with questions, comments, or just cute pictures of your dogs – all are appreciated.
Love,
Beth x
