CARE AND SUPPORT

Katherine Handy-Woods was working from home one morning in 2012 when there was a knock at the door. “I opened it to find the police on my doorstep. I was shocked when they told me my ex-husband and the father of my two children – Morgan and Finlay, then eight and ten – had died by suicide. I remember closing the door, sitting down and realising I had until the 3.30pm school pick-up – which was just four hours away – to figure out how to tell the children their father had died.”

Katherine’s ex-husband Ken had suffered from alcohol dependency for much of their marriage. “Before having children, we had a pretty hectic social life like a lot of young professionals with high disposable income, but once having children, most people calm down with their social life. Ken wanted to keep going, and I think his drink problem started to become more apparent then.

“He was stressed at work and relied on alcohol to deal with it. He ended up losing his job, which I believe in hindsight was to do with his drinking, which then led to depression. Things sort of spiralled from that point onwards.

“Ken was very angry and I remember one of the turning points for me was when one of the kids said, ‘All daddy ever does is shout at me.’ He wasn’t able to function as a parent because he could barely look after himself. He couldn’t put his own needs to one side to be the adult and be reliable for the children.”

Although the GP tried to help get Ken the support he needed, he wouldn’t engage. “He never acknowledged he had alcohol dependency and didn’t take up the help that was offered unfortunately, and nobody knew what to do or how to help him. In 2010, we got divorced and I did everything I could to support him having a relationship with the children while also keeping them safe, which was quite a hard path to tread. I could see he was not in a good space, so when I found out he had taken his life, it was a big shock but at the same time not a surprise. He had been threatening to commit suicide for years – when we were married I felt it was one of his ways to control the situation – so it got to a point where I didn’t think he would do it. It was awful that he had got to that point, but my first thought was for our children and how it would affect them.”

Katherine ended up Googling ‘How to tell your child their father has died by suicide’, and top of the list was Child Bereavement UK. “I got through to the helpline and the people on the end of the phone were amazing. They had the benefit of having experienced this kind of thing before and were able to give advice based on very practical things to do. The key things I remembered were to tell the truth – don’t lie to them and say he had a heart attack – but don’t give too much information. They advised me to let the children ask for the information they needed. I think left to my own devices I might have given them a contextual piece about how daddy was feeling and why he might have done what he did, then I might have had to backtrack or unpick things I had unwittingly said. The advice I got was lay out the bones of the situation and see what they ask and be willing to answer whatever questions they ask, when they ask them, which I did.

“The children came home from school and I told them the bare bones – I had sad news, daddy had died, he had taken own life. It took time to sink in and they both got very upset. Even in those early moments they handled it differently. Finlay became fixated on how, whether it had hurt and those kinds of questions. Morgan asked more about why he had taken his life.”

Over the following months and years, the charity continued to provide support for Katherine and her family. “When the children eventually went back to school, the charity had someone who was dedicated to schools liaison who tried to help the headmistress understand some of the principles of how to deal with grieving children. Morgan also moved up to secondary school shortly after Ken’s death, so they provided information to the school on how to support a bereaved child through transition to senior school. The charity also suggested three or four strategies other children had found useful. Finlay liked to have cards in his pocket and he could hold one up with a sad face and the teacher would know he needed to leave class and have some quiet time.

“When someone dies very suddenly, it pulls the rug out from under you and children can feel very out of control, so I liked that the charity always offered multiple options to help with any situation, allowing the children to trust their own instincts about what they needed.”

The charity also supported Finlay through family counselling sessions. “We attended sessions together where we could also take part in art and craft, which was a way of doing something that started the conversation in a very natural way. Morgan was less interested in that, as she was very private in her grief, but the charity was clever in giving me ways I could involve her and sending me home with things I could do with her in the privacy of our own home.

“The sessions really helped us to process the experience and normalise talking about it. As Ken and I were divorced, he wasn’t part of our everyday lives at the time he took his life, so I think it would have been easy to sort of brush it under the carpet, but this created a space to revisit it. It helped us not only individually but also to support each other.”

Katherine and her children – now 20 and 22 – continue to make time to talk about Ken and celebrate his life together. “One thing we did quite early on was create times in the year where we remember Ken, such as his birthday and Father’s Day, so we know we will have those days to check in with each other. “If we hadn’t had the support of Child Bereavement UK, I don’t know what life would be like now. I really think they started us off on the road to recovery in the best way and it was also a bit of a game changer for me in how I parented, helping me find ways of being much more transparent and honest and having conversations in an appropriate way for the age of the children.

“I think the charity is so incredibly important, as when something like this happens, it’s vital to feel like you’re not on your own, as often people don’t know what to say to you so just avoid you, which leaves you feeling isolated. Having the charity there and knowing I could phone them any time for help and advice was amazing. They have a really powerful blend of expertise and compassionate care that is so unique and special.”

THE CANDIS BIG GIVE AMOUNT RAISED: £20,305

• Child Bereavement UK helps children, parents and their families to rebuild their lives when a child grieves or when a child dies.
• The money raised in the Candis Big Give will help children and families through the charity’s Child Bereavement UK Helpline, which offers emotional and practical support via calls, emails and LiveChat accessed through its website. The helpline team offers people time to explore their situation, as well as providing information, signposting, referrals, and support as necessary tailored to each individual. The helpline is also available to professionals supporting children and families affected by bereavement.
• The helpline supported just under 7,250 contacts in the charity’s last financial year.
• The helpline team also take referrals for families who need to receive longerterm support. They will contact the families and put in place whatever support is needed. They work closely with the charity’s education team, who provide training and support to schools and colleges with bereavement awareness training or developing a bereavement policy, for example.
• Visit childbereavementuk.org