We know how important it is to spend time together as families, enjoying everyday activities, making memories over the years and experiencing things together.

When a family goes through the death of their baby or child the opportunities for them to make many of those memories are gone. 

The hardest thing I still find is not being able to take any more photos of Charlie. 
I love taking pictures and always have done.
I have hundreds of pictures showing things me and my family has done over the last 51 years of my life. To not be able to take pictures and make memories is very difficult to get your head round.

Most families always remember the holidays they have been on throughout their lives and enjoy retelling them and remembering the things they all got up to.
Having the opportunity to get away after a loss is so important for every member of the family. Often, when you are grieving, you forget to spend time together and often find talking to each other difficult. The grief consumes you and the motivation to even think about planning a holiday is just to much.

Over the last few years we have wanted to be able to offer a family the opportunity to go away together and spend some valuable time reconnecting. Getting away from their normal environment can allow them to spend quality time together away from the day to day things.

At the beginning of 2018 we launched our Holiday Nomination event. We have been so lucky to have been supported by www.caravanrenting.com who have donated a weeks holiday for our Charity Ball auction on the last 2 years.
This year they have gone one step further by letting us have the use of one of their caravans for a week for a bereaved family to go and spend precious time together. 
There really are some amazing people in this world and often we only get to hear about the negatives so we feel very privileged to be able to share a truly positive,generous offer.

We received many nominations for the event and each and every one of them deserved to have a holiday away. Unfortunately we could only choose 1. The trustees spent many hours reading through the nominations and then chatting together to see which families everyone had chosen. 
Eventually we made the final decision and had the pleasure of telling the chosen family that they had been chosen. We arranged to meet up with them at our office last week and it was wonderful to actually meet them in person.

  
This is Lindsey, Dean & Mia Baker from Chesterfield.
Lindsey had sent in the nomination for their family after they lost their little girl, Kayleigh Julie Baker, on 13th September 2017 from Edwards Syndrome.

"I am requesting a holiday for my husband, me and our 8 year old daughter. On 7th September 2017 our baby girl was born, she sadly died 13th September 2017. She had Edwards Syndrome, we are all heartbroken that our little girl was taken from us and left such sadness in our hearts. My husband and little girl, Mia, have been absolutely amazing helping me through this. I am heartbroken and if it wasn't for them I don't think that I would be here. I just want to take our princess on holiday to show her what a brave little girl she is and how much we love her. We can't afford to pay for a caravan this year and it will be so hard not having our baby girl with us but we need to show Mia a lovely time instead of the sad few months we have all had."

They are a lovely family and having met with them it just made us realise that we had made a good decision. Mia was a beautiful young girl with a very big heart who wanted to make her mum feel better. They are going through the hardest time of their lives but they are all being so supportive of each other.
We really hope that the break away will give them the chance to spend some fun time together rebuilding their lives whilst always carrying their special angel with them.

Lindsey has assured us that she will send us some pictures of the holiday and we look forward to hearing about all the things they did together.

This has really cemented the idea that we have always had which is to be able to offer many more families the opportunity of a week away. 
We have set up a Just Giving campaign to raise funds to allow us to purchase a 'Charlies-Angel-Centre Foundation' caravan. Once we have our own caravan we will be able to offer 32 families a season the chance to get away together to make new memories. 
Over the last year we have supported over 30,000 families in many different ways. If we can offer more breaks away we know it can help bring families a little bit of happiness at a time when all they can see is sorrow.
https://www.justgiving.com/campaigns/charity/charlies-angel-centre/holidayhome?social_utm_term=6m5uaopny

Child loss is a loss like no other. 
It is often misunderstood and can be minimised and even dismissed by many.
If you know, love or are a bereaved parent remember that even the 'good' days are harder than anyone can ever imagine.
Advice is something that is definitely not needed, love, understanding and compassion is what these families really need.

There will never be a day, hour or minute that a bereaved family will stop thinking and loving their child. 
All parents feel unconditional love for their child from the minute they know they are expecting them. 
A bereaved family will continue to unconditionally love their child in heaven just as much as a family who have their child with them. They will want to hear their child's name and they will want to say their child's name just as much as a non bereaved family. 
Even though they may have only had a short period of time with them they will always want to talk about them and share their child with everyone.

Even in 2018 it can still be seen as a taboo subject to talk about child death and this can make a grieving family feel like their child is not valued. Child and baby loss needs to be a subject that can be openly talked about, then families can share their loved one with others and feel that they are important to people.

Over the last 5 years I have found it gets easier to talk about Charlie and feel that more people genuinely want to hear about him. I have come to realise that some people will never find it easy listening to our family talk about Charlie but it will never stop us. We are all so proud of Charlie and how strong he was and we want people to know how special he always will be to us.

There is a bond that emerges between bereaved families that enables them to be so supportive to each other. We come together as strangers but become connected by our losses for life. It doesn't matter what walk of life you come from, being a bereaved parent breaks down all barriers. No one else can truly understand the pain and heartbreak that a family is going through like a family that is also grieving the loss of their child.

The family will also grieve for a lifetime. There is no 'getting over it', there is no quick fix for this heartache. There is no glue that can mend the broken hearts of a grieving family. There will never be a day where they do not think about and yearn for their child to be here with them.
They will grieve and ache for their child forever. 
This is where they need the support and understanding of others to enable them to keep their child included in every aspect of life. They need to feel able to talk about the important events that their child is missing and to feel that they can be included in family celebrations. Lots of bereaved families like to do something around their child's birthday or at Christmas and being able to do so can give them some comfort.

We have always described our charity as a 'club' that no one ever wants to join yet it is filled with some of the most amazing, courageous, inspiring and dedicated people you could ever meet. They are so brave and fight every day to keep their heads above water.
Love is the most powerful emotion on earth and the unbreakable love between a bereaved parent and their child is something to behold.

A bereaved family have had to fight to get themselves out of this unimaginable pain and sorrow but it does not mean that they will never feel happiness again. Often they find more happiness in the little things that they probably never would have even noticed before. They see life in a very different way and take nothing for granted any more.

The charity is just growing and growing and it makes us feel very proud to see what we have achieved.

Over the last 18 months we have seen so many changes happen with the charity. 
Our knowledge and understanding of how everything works and legal requirements has been a massive learning curve. 
None of us have had any experience in writing policies or checking legal requirements but we have had to find out and educate ourselves to make sure that everything we do is done properly. It hasn't always been easy and the long legal terms do not make for light reading, however I think we are all pretty proud of how we have grown and developed as people through this and we are now feeling much more confident in our abilities.

We have also found that the charity is now a much more known about resource for the NHS and other organisations to access. Initially I think they were a little wary as we were a new/young charity but we have shown through our dedication and determination that we are a charity that is here to stay and we want to work with other services to ensure that no family ever goes home without support in place.

When we first set up the charity we had a vision of what we wanted to achieve, we wanted no bereaved family to leave hospital without a comprehensive support package in place. 
This is still one of our main priorities but we have also developed and refined it as well as adding extra areas we want to be able to support people. As we work with more and more families and different support services we have been able to identify specific areas that are currently not being fully addressed. 
We know that it won't happen overnight and we are fully aware that it won't be easy but we are not a charity that is deterred by challenges. We have overcome lots of obstacles over the last 5 years but we have never let them defeat us. Even when we have all been sat down wondering 'what can we do now' we have never seriously thought about giving up.
We were told that many new charities 'go under' within the first 5 years due to pressures and procedures that have to be adhered to. We knew that no matter what challenges we faced we would always be driven by the handsome, angelic face of our very own angel, Charlie Arthur Curtis. Whenever I have felt myself being overwhelmed by what we needed to do I would just look at my pictures of Charlie and knew that I would never give in. I think everyone of us uses Charlie as our inspiration when we are having a 'down day'. Charlie showed courage and strength throughout his short life and if he could be that strong then we could also be strong in his memory.
I honestly think that this is what makes our charity work, it makes others realise that we are not just a charity that will fade away. Families and professionals see that we are a family that understands bereavement and that we are down to earth and are only interested in making bereavement support readily available to families as and when they need it. 
Whilst we can see that there are changes happening across the country it is not happening quick enough for us. We struggle to understand why and how the bosses are not seeing that there are to many families going without help and support following the death of their baby or child. There are more and more TV programmes that have tackled the story of child and baby loss, many doing so in a fantastic way. The acknowledgement that this happens every day and that the families desperately need help and support can only be a good thing but if the bosses in the relevant services refuse to see that it is an issue then nothing will change.
In the last 12 months there has been a few high profile families that have spoken out about their losses and an MP even stood up in parliament and spoke of her experience. Again this can only help the public and professionals see what is lacking in the provision of bereavement support. 
We have been contacted by families all across the UK and have also had families from other countries get in touch with us. We are sadly still hearing of families that are 'slipping through the net' and being left alone to struggle through. 

THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE

We acknowledge that most people do not want to talk about or hear about babies and children dying, but it is happening and it is happening on a daily basis. There are so many families every day that are having to face this and need to talk and be heard. It is a subject that makes people feel uncomfortable but the more open people are and more understanding of a bereaved families needs then the less uncomfortable it will be. 
No family ever thinks they will have to bury their child, it is not the way life should go. A bereaved family reaching out for help and support takes a huge amount of effort so if you feeling a little uncomfortable can help these families surely it is worth it. 

Charlies-Angel-Centre Foundation will continue to grow and the number of families we are able to get help and support to will also grow. 
We have always said that our 'group' of bereaved families is one that no one ever wants to join but sadly if you do then the help,comfort & support you can get connects us all together for years to come. We have seen this support come back to us as well, several families that have come to us at their most difficult time are now wanting to reach out and give back the support they got to other families. Many become trustees, others help out at events or raise funds for us. 
We hope you stay with us as we develop even further, without your support we would not be able to do everything we currently are.