Funding to Widen Access to Local Hospice Bereavement Services

Adult and children’s hospices based in England and Wales that are full members of Hospice UK are invited to apply for grant funding.

The Masonic Charitable Foundation and Hospice UK are working together to provide grant funding to 15 local projects across England and Wales that will develop bereavement support to address the needs of local people who are currently under represented.

The aim of the programme is to widen access to hospice bereavement support by developing and extending support to bereaved people who may not have had access to services from their local hospice and other local organisations. The purpose of offering such support is to enhance the well-being of bereaved families or individuals.

The funding encourages new projects to be developed and implemented in partnership with others in order that they complement existing provision and are integrated in systematic ways to reach more people.

The scope of projects could focus on:

• Pre and post bereavement support for people who are caring for a loved one with dementia.
• Pre and post bereavement support for people who have learning disabilities.
• Bereavement support for the lonely and isolated in the local community.
• Services for children and young people when a parent or significant adult has died, for example online support/social activities.

The funding will enable hospices to initiate, build or develop locally delivered approaches to bereavement care. This can be achieved through a number of ways:

• Putting into practice or piloting a project from the recommendations or findings from a local scoping exercise, robust needs assessment, patient and public involvement.
• Adapting existing activities where, through the investment of additional resources, greater impact can be achieved through adoption of new roles and approaches.

A total of £300,000 is available for this round with the expectation that 15 local hospices will be awarded grants. Grants of up to £20,000 are available to support projects running over a period of 18 months. This allows for up to three months setup phase and 12 months project delivery, with a further three months to cover any unforeseen delays mid project.

The deadline for applications is 18 January 2019 (5pm).

Full details …