If you are an employer or line manager here are some tips to support bereaved parents:

• Check up on the parent, they might not answer but leave a message, not about work, just reassure them that you are thinking about them and that you are there in a supportive way.

• Start to think about how you can support the parent when they return to work. Don’t put this responsibility on the parent. ideas like, flexible working hours, time off for appointments, investigation report meetings or hospital visits, weekly support meetings,

• Small realistic achievable targets! don’t make assumptions about what they want or need.

• Support a phased return and be as flexible as possible. Delayed start times. Grief is really tiring and comes in waves some days you don’t know how you are going to feel.

• TALK ABOUT THEIR BABY AND USE THEIR BABY’S NAME!!!!

• Do not try in any way to minimise what the parent has felt and still is experiencing – child bereavement is horrific. Utterly horrific and time does not change this – their child will not un-die.

• Talk openly about money and realistic times to return, this will be a consideration for all parents.

• Remember child bereavement is NOT contagious. You can go near and look at a bereaved parent. I felt this when walking my dog through a park, I saw a colleague whom I worked with for 10 years, our dogs interacted and they completely blanked me! like I had leprosy. DONT DO THIS!

• Say thinks like; its nice to see you back, we have missed you, you have had such a hard time and we want to support you, we would like to hear about your beautiful baby when you are ready. we are going to do this ….., you have had a shit time, please tell us if you want?

• Get the family a gift! like you would if their child was alive!

• Recognise that child bereavement is FOREVER, this is not an illness that the parent will get over in a few weeks after some hard graft. There may be days that the parent feels crap.. birthdays , mothers day, fathers day. BASICALLY THINK!!!!! time does not heal it changes. you never heal when your baby dies.