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Kent charity's ‘green therapy' wins the day
Kent charity's ‘green therapy' wins the day

Telegraph

timea day ago

  • Health
  • Telegraph

Kent charity's ‘green therapy' wins the day

Tucked away in a rural village setting in Kent is a space which may reshape the way Britain deals with everything from social isolation to bereavement. East Malling charity Communigrow is the winner of the Community category in the Adobe Express Your Innovation competition, in partnership with Telegraph Media Group, judged by award-winning social entrepreneur and broadcaster Natalie Campbell MBE. The competition offers mentoring and investment to three of Britain's most creative businesses in three categories: Community Project, Small Business and Rising Star. Communigrow grows food in an eco-friendly way. Entirely powered by solar panels, the lush 2.4-acre green space has no electricity bills and produces food for the local community and food banks, but also offers hundreds of local people 'green therapy' to help improve their mental and physical health. The business was a clear standout in its category, Campbell says, and a deserving winner of the competition sponsored by Adobe Express, the free create-anything app. The app enables entrepreneurs to create eye-catching promotional videos, flyers and social media campaigns in seconds. The most important impact of Communigrow is not the food it grows, but the way in which it helps local people boost their mental and physical health by getting in touch with nature, says Tamsin Gillard-Moss, community engagement manager for Communigrow. Gillard-Moss says that the workers and volunteers at Communigrow, which was founded 14 years ago, did not expect the site to grow the way it has, having started as wasteland, with Gillard-Moss joining three years ago as it boomed in popularity. She says she has realised its main benefit is the boost it gives to the mental and physical wellbeing of Communigrow's beneficiaries. 'I was speaking to one of the people in a group for over-50s who has long-term health conditions,' explains Gillard-Moss. 'He said that prior to coming he had been living 'like a hermit'. He didn't go out, he didn't see anyone. It was really sad. It really struck home.' The man has since come every Wednesday all through the winter, and Gillard-Moss says both his physical and mental health are clearly improving. As well as working with local Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) school Five Acre Wood Sixth Form, the charity also offers free therapeutic gardening sessions for groups such as isolated older people and bereaved adults, and there are new groups for army veterans and emergency services workers. In 2024, the site ran 45 wellbeing sessions for older people, worked with 10 local schools, ran 116 sessions for children and young people with SEND and ran 30 family workshops. 'What we see is being outside, being active and taking part in community activities, and intergenerational working – we have everyone from tiny tots to over-80s here – means there's a real change in people's mental and physical health. That's what we do,' says Gillard-Moss. Just 17 per cent of British adults engage with people from different generations in community spaces, according to YouGov research, with only 14 per cent of over-55s doing so, making this a valuable service. According to Gillard-Moss, Communigrow applied to the competition thinking that they 'didn't have a hope' as a relatively small charity. East Malling is among the top 20 per cent most income-deprived areas in England, and the site has helped more than 1,000 adults and young people over the past year, with numbers having doubled since 2021. Gillard-Moss says that Communigrow hopes to use its mentorship from the Adobe Express Your Innovation competition to boost awareness locally. 'The big barrier for us is that we are on a gated site,' she says. 'Unless you're coming to visit us, we don't get people seeing what we do.' The Community category judge, Natalie Campbell MBE, says she believes the charity's approach could be used in other communities across Britain. 'I picked Communigrow to win because they demonstrated the real sense of being rooted in the East Malling community, and what they're doing can be replicated across the UK,' she says. Campbell looks around the sun-splashed site where volunteers are working with students from Five Acre Wood Sixth Form. 'There is so much about this space that fills my heart with joy,' says Campbell who believes that her expertise in brand communications, gained as co-chief executive of social enterprise Belu since 2020, and co-founder of social innovation agency A Very Good Company, will enable her to offer advice on how to spread the word about Communigrow. 'This is a beautiful space, and when I look at the organisation's various social channels, that is not coming through,' says Campbell. 'With the Adobe package, you've got tools to communicate, so if you figure out the right story, then you'll start to see more people coming down to the space.' Adobe Express makes it easy to produce eye-catching social media posts, videos and flyers that can help gain much-needed exposure for businesses, and Campbell says that she will mentor Communigrow towards 'quick brand and marketing wins', and believes that Communigrow's approach could be commercialised with corporates for team-building days, raising more money for the charity. She hopes to use her own contacts to connect Communigrow to other funders. 'It aligns to the things that I think are important,' says Campbell. It's about togetherness and making people healthier in a post-pandemic world where people spend so much time alone. Being here immediately changes your mood. If I was running the government, this would be socially prescribed to operate all across the UK.'

Bereaved parents from Basingstoke make garden to support others
Bereaved parents from Basingstoke make garden to support others

BBC News

time26-05-2025

  • Health
  • BBC News

Bereaved parents from Basingstoke make garden to support others

Bereaved parents have created a memory garden to support others who suffer the loss of a Wheaton and Matt Snook from Basingstoke welcomed the arrival of their twins last year but both babies died shortly after their family received support from Hampshire Hospitals Charity, and, when the funerals came around, they asked for people to donate to the couple used the money raised to fund the memorial garden which has been created at Old Basing House in Basingstoke. Before giving birth Jasmine and Matt knew that their daughter Evie had Edward's syndrome which meant she was not expected to survive died just 99 minutes after her couple were able to take their son Noah home to begin life as a new family but after just two weeks he became poorly with a sudden illness and was taken to the John Radcliff Hospital in Oxford for specialist was revealed that he had suffered severe brain damage and he died at 21 days old. "Laura Mackie from the maternity bereavement team was amazing," Mr Snook said. "When we were far away in hospital with Noah, Laura arranged to get the three of us back to the butterfly suite in Basingstoke so we could say goodbye to Noah in the room we lost Evie. She arranged everything so quickly and on a weekend. Her compassion to help us outside of her working hours and ability to get this sorted so quickly made an impossibly hard moment to deal with so much easier."Reflecting on the support that the family has received since losing their babies, Mr Snook said: "We didn't expect it at all. The whole team was just perfect and the ongoing support we have received has been incredible. "I've even joined a football team supported by the charity for bereaved dads and it's been a huge help to me to be with others in the same situation. Because of all this, we wanted to use the money raised to help give back and provide something that other parents would find useful." 'Haven' for parents The garden at Old Basing House, a former Tudor palace and castle in the village of Old Basing, has been named after Evie and Noah."It's a really comforting place," said Ms Wheaton after she saw the site for the first time. "It's a place for parents to come to have some private time. It feels surreal to think we've managed to achieve this and create a haven that parents can retreat to if they have nowhere to go to remember their baby and we're pleased that it's now here for people to come and use."Ms Wheaton is now pregnant again and, while a little apprehensive, the couple have said they are now looking forward to welcoming their new baby. You can follow BBC Hampshire & Isle of Wight on Facebook, X (Twitter), or Instagram.

No death certificate, no funeral: Why some families can't find their deceased children
No death certificate, no funeral: Why some families can't find their deceased children

SBS Australia

time23-05-2025

  • General
  • SBS Australia

No death certificate, no funeral: Why some families can't find their deceased children

Before the 1980s, babies who had been stillborn or died soon after birth were often buried in unmarked graves in locations unknown to their families, adding to the trauma and loss felt by generations of bereaved mothers. Source: SBS News When a woman knocked on Geoffrey Horlock's door and told him that her baby brother had been buried in the same grave plot as his own brother, he was more than a little surprised. "I was not sure what to say at first," Horlock says. His brother Andrew had been stillborn in 1960. Horlock was around nine at the time. He recalls his mother telling him about how his brother was taken out of the delivery room in a white sheet and buried in the local cemetery while she was still recovering in hospital. This is how infant loss was often dealt with in the 1960s. "Mum never got over it," Horlock says. Right until the day she died, she always used to say: 'I wonder which side of the family he looked like.' The family was issued a birth certificate and told about the burial site. But this was not always the case. For the Harding family, whose baby died less than three weeks after the Horlocks' in the same regional Western Australian town, no birth certificate was issued. Unlike baby Horlock, baby Harding was live-born but arrived prematurely and tragically did not survive. Unbeknownst to both families, he was buried alongside baby Horlock in the lower part of his grave plot in August 1960. It wasn't until baby Harding's older sister, Susan Mead, showed up on Geoffrey Horlock's doorstep some 65 years later that the connection was finally made. She had come to ask whether she could place a marking on the grave to recognise her brother. Horlock says once the initial shock passed, he realised there was only one answer. Mead lives on a property in the south-west of WA, about 65km east of the small town of Bridgetown where her mother gave birth to baby Harding. Mead and her siblings had spent decades hoping to find their baby brother's resting place. But without formal documentation, such as a birth or death certificate, their efforts to find him were continually stymied. Finally, in March, they reached a turning point. Mead's sister-in-law spotted a Facebook post from the Shire of Bridgetown-Greenbushes, about records for the nearby Bridgetown Cemetery having been uploaded to its website. Looking over the shire's list of people buried there, Mead came across a mention of a 'Baby Harding'. That name had not been included in previous searchable listings for the cemetery. It identified the exact location of the grave, too, but when family members went to visit, they found a gravestone for baby Horlock instead. Confused, the family contacted Bridgetown-Greenbushes Shire, which manages the cemetery. They confirmed that baby Harding is also buried in the plot, which, according to records, had been divided in two — a practice that the local government has since ceased. In a statement to SBS News, a spokesperson for the shire acknowledged the challenges with historical burial records for stillbirths and neonatal deaths, noting it is "currently completing an audit and correlation of hardcopy documents, current headstones and electronic records" to ensure it has a fully digitised and accurate record of all listings. The spokesperson says the shire is aware of one other case in which two unrelated babies were buried in the same plot, dating back to 1954. In that case, two stillborn babies were buried in the same plot eight weeks apart, despite records showing it was not listed as a 'half plot'. "The Shire is committed to ensuring this information is researched and updated so that descendant family members can search for and locate loved ones," the spokesperson says. Many families who lost babies as a result of stillbirth or neonatal death before the 1980s in Australia remain in the dark about their loved one's final resting place. Joan Noonan is a volunteer co-leader with a group set up by Red Nose Australia, which seeks to prevent the sudden and unexpected death of babies and young children and gives bereavement support for those affected by death of a baby or young child. Its 'Older Loss Group' supports mothers who are still processing the grief of stillbirth years after losing a child. One of the key aims of the group, which is based in Victoria, is to help families in tracking down burial sites. Noonan says many families search for the final resting place of their stillborn family members in the hope of finding some peace. The 78-year-old became part of the Older Loss Group about 30 years ago, having lost two infant daughters of her own in the 1970s. "In most cases, you weren't given a chance to have a funeral," she says. "The hospital staff would say they were 'looking after these babies', and the hospital would arrange burial and families weren't even told where they were buried." Noonan says at that time, it was not the "done thing" to question the process. Stillbirth was treated as taboo. Nobody talked about the death of a baby. "In the majority of cases, they were buried in communal graves, they often waited for about 10 babies at a time and there's some places in Melbourne where there's hundreds of babies buried in mass graves." Noonan's volunteer co-lead, Fotini Koklas, says given most babies they have located via the Older Loss Group are in mass graves, the situation involving the Hardings and the Horlocks appears to be "extremely rare". Koklas has come across one similar case in which a baby was buried in a grave with an unrelated adult, with no clear explanation as to why this happened. "It's possible that it was a space issue, or perhaps the cemetery simply didn't know where to place the baby," she says. Until this year, baby Harding's name would have only have been traceable via handwritten records stored in a very specific location by the Bridgetown-Greenbushes shire. Koklas says because of state-based variations in laws, record systems and how stillbirths are handled, it can be incredibly challenging for families to track down accurate information. "Every cemetery is different, and the level of detail they have in their historical records varies greatly," she says. Historically, different stakeholders that may have details that could help families were very siloed from one another. "There's often a breakdown in communication between cemeteries, stonemasons, and families, in some cases, critical details aren't shared — either because of incomplete records or administrative oversights." Koklas says the passage of time complicates the process further. "Over the decades, cemetery management has often changed hands, record-keeping systems have evolved, and unfortunately, some older records have been lost, damaged, or simply never kept in the first place — especially for babies born before the 1980s." Inaccurate and inconsistent historical records present an added hurdle for those searching for answers. Koklas explains that naming stillborn babies was subject to variation: they could be recorded with their mother's maiden name or married name, or referred to as names such as: "Baby Smith," "Stillborn Smith," or "Baby of Kate Smith". "While families can sometimes search online for burial records, the transition from handwritten paper records to digital systems has introduced a number of issues," she says. "Dates are often misrecorded due to difficulties in reading old handwriting. "In one case, a baby who passed away in April 1966 was entered into the system as April 1968." Noonan says despite such challenges, it's often still possible to piece information together by cross-referencing available records, contacting multiple sources and a bit of compassionate persistence. "We've developed some records now that show in Victoria what hospitals used what undertakers and then what cemeteries they used and things like that," she says. In years gone by, a birth may not have even been considered a birth if the baby was stillborn, so no birth or death certificate was issued. This also meant that protocols around burial fell outside of legal requirements. The statutory instruments and registration practices related to births and perinatal deaths — which include stillbirths and neonatal deaths — have varied between Australian states and territories over the years. For example, in Queensland and Victoria, legislation around the registration of stillbirths came into place in 1989, while in NSW it was a 1995 Act that recognised stillbirth as a birth and therefore required formal registration. Associate professor Fran Boyle from the University of Queensland's Institute for Social Science Research and Stillbirth Centre of Research Excellence says it was not until the mid-1980s that social attitudes toward perinatal deaths began to change. "This was largely due to the voices of bereaved parents," she explains. Parent advocacy groups under the banner of Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Society (SANDS) — now part of Red Nose — were formed. "One of their many important achievements was the successful campaign for government to recognise stillborn babies through birth and death certificates," Boyle says. Today, across Australia, a stillborn baby at 20 weeks gestation or more is required to be registered, in most states and territories that will warrant a birth certificate, noting stillbirth. Boyle says burial practices tend to reflect the "prevailing social norm" of the time, and before the 80s "the loss of a baby was something to be forgotten". "[It was] not something to be discussed or memorialised." Boyle says such sentiment informed the practice of withholding stillborn babies from their mothers. Many were never given the chance to look at or hold their children. "The widely held view was that parents needed to be protected, that seeing their baby, having contact with their baby, creating memories of any kind would be harmful, and intensify and prolong their grief," Boyle says. Horlock still remembers his mother returning from hospital after giving birth without his baby brother. He says she spent days sitting by the wood fire stove in their kitchen, just staring at the fire. "Mum was distressed about it and it troubled her her whole life," he says. Much has changed since laws recognising the births of stillborn babies were strengthened. The national Care Around Stillbirth and Neonatal Death guidelines, updated in 2024, cover best practice for stillbirth and recommend offering all parents the opportunity to see and hold their baby immediately after birth and allowing them to interact with their baby through activities such as bathing and dressing them. Koklas has seen the benefit of these changes firsthand. As well as being involved in helping to find baby graves, she is a bereaved mum. Her two baby boys died in 2011 and 2016. "I am so grateful I got to hold my babies, name them and make funeral arrangements for them," she says. For those who lost children in decades gone by, the hope of finding their graves remains. Koklas says every family she has supported to locate their baby has shared a similar feeling: a deep sense of peace and closure. "Finding a baby's final resting place is one of the most healing and powerful experiences … it's something that goes beyond words, like a heavy weight being lifted. It doesn't mean they've 'moved on' — because grief doesn't work that way — but they feel like they can now live again, just a little bit lighter. Similarly, Noonan attests to the importance of finding burial sites. She says while the Older Loss Group has helped to locate hundreds of babies, there are still so many more Australian families out there wishing they knew where their babies were. She encourages anyone needing help in their search to reach out, saying: "it's never too late". An investigation of historical practices associated with stillborn babies and perinatal infant loss in Australia before the 1980s has never been undertaken. The federal attorney-general's department did not respond to questions put by SBS News about whether the government plans to conduct a national investigation or apology into the matter. At least for Mead and the Harding siblings, there is some long-awaited closure — and the chance to place a commemorative plaque on the plot their baby brother shares with baby Horlock. Geoffrey Horlock says he and his siblings decided to place a headstone on the grave a number of years ago after both their parents had died as a way to honour their mother. He says his mother would have loved for that to have happened in her lifetime. "That finished it for us; it put some closure on Andrew. So if there's another baby buried there, it'd only be fair that we let them do that too."

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