Cruse Bereavement Care


Cruse Bereavement Care and its counterpart Cruse Bereavement Care Scotland are the United Kingdom's largest bereavement charity, which provide free care and bereavement counselling to people suffering from grief.

Purpose

Cruse Bereavement Care is the largest national charity for bereaved people in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, with a sister organisation in Scotland. Cruse offers face-to-face, group, telephone, email and website support to people after someone close to them has died and works to enhance society's care of bereaved people.
Cruse has a freephone national helpline and local services throughout England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Cruse also has a specialist website for young people, hopeagain.org.uk. Cruse services are provided by trained volunteers and are confidential and free. Cruse also provides training and consultancy for organisations and for those who may come into contact with bereaved people in the course of their work

History

Founded in 1959 in Richmond upon Thames, Cruse has areas and branches across England, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man. The first branch of Cruse Scotland opened in the late 1960s, and by the mid 1990s there were 28 branches.

Operations

Apart from a core of paid staff, based mainly at central office in Richmond upon Thames, services are provided mainly through locally co-ordinated groups, manned by 5,000 trained volunteers. In 2016/7, Cruse:
As an organisational member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, Cruse provides suitable training to all of its 5,000 bereavement support volunteers, following the rigorous code of ethics set out by BACP. Additionally, once certified, an additional 15hrs of additional training is provided per year. External training is also accredited by the National Counselling society.
Cruse also provides training and consultancy for external organisations and for those who may encounter bereaved people in the course of their work.

Organisation