Winstons Wish

Who we are

Our vision is that every bereaved child has access to support as and when they need it. Our mission is to ensure the resilience of bereaved children by providing high quality services that meet their needs.

Every day, more than 100 children are bereaved of a parent in the UK. Their life is turned upside down and many will struggle to cope with such an enormous loss. Grief can be so destructive for a child's future. Winston's Wish exists to ensure that despite what has happened, a child can move forward with hope, courage an strength in the future. Since 1992, we have built a wealth of knowledge and experience in understanding the impact of bereavement at a young age. We believe that children need support to make sense of death, so that they can rebuild their lives and look forward to a hopeful future.

We offer practical and therapeutic face to face support in individual and group settings, and via our national Helpline, website and extensive range of publications. Studies have shown that unsupported grief in childhood can have significant short and long term negative consequences - it can have a deep and lasting effect on a child's emotional wellbeing, often resulting in anger, depression, sleeping difficulties, relationship problems, mental health and offending issues. Everyone who supports us - our partners, donors and volunteers - are passionate about ensuring that together, we can help more bereaved children each and every year.

Our culture and values

Our Vision

A society in which every child and young person gets the help they need after anyone close to them dies.

Our Mission

To make sure no child or young person faces grief alone.

Our Values

• We put children and young people at the heart of everything we do
• We are positive and have fun
• We never stop learning
• We embrace differences
• We strive for better

Equality, diversity and inclusion policy

Winston’s Wish is committed to achieving our vision of a society in which every child can get the help they need when someone close to them dies.

This belief is at the heart of everything we do at Winston’s Wish and our equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) strategy is essential to achieving this. We recognise that we need to do more to align our practices with our values, and where we are not living up to these standards, we will make changes to put things right.

For our staff, volunteers and trustees

We want to be the best place to come and work and an employer of skilled and talented staff and volunteers from a range of diverse backgrounds. Our belief is that our staff should represent and reflect the communities we work with and that diversity is an asset to be cherished, nurtured and grown.

We know we have a way to go on this. As an employer we are actively working to increase the diversity at all levels of our organisation and make Winston’s Wish an inclusive place to work. Creating an inclusive and supportive culture is not only the right thing to do, but also what is best for the children, young people and families we support.