I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising those points, and particularly the role the Church can play in supporting families. I say to anybody going through grief that there are people out there they can reach out to. The challenge is knowing where to reach out, and this debate is about helping people to find places they can go when they need support.

I will return to the speech written by Dan:

“It was a cruel realisation, but necessary. It allowed me to begin the process of healing, because grief is a bittersweet feeling;
whilst you’re suffering your own loss, you get to share each other’s love and compassion for the person that you lose.

After months of not being able to cope and agonising over the loss I was finally directed to a charity called Child Bereavement UK.

The months following my dad’s death I experienced a communication breakdown. I was unable to talk about him and felt completely overwhelmed. I sought relief in my own solitude but to no avail. Feeling trapped in this sensation of anguish.

The charity then became a lifeline for me. It was the only place where I could feel safe to express my own feelings and where I was able to begin that complex journey of navigating through emotion.

What counselling did for me was allow me to talk openly and freely about my dad;
however, the most helpful aspect of my time at Child Bereavement was the group meetings where I could speak to young people who had also been through what I had. The groups offered a comforting presence and with their guidance I was able to acknowledge my own feelings of grief.

It gave me the opportunity to talk about my own experiences but also to console those who had similar experiences. In doing so it created a sense of solidarity between myself and other grieving young people.

I had one particular issue when first attending Child Bereavement and that was not being able to comfortably talk about my dad openly. For months I had suppressed my own feelings, but now I cherish the moments that I had with him and I’m always keen to listen to the impact that he had on everybody else.

I would go once a month to one-to-one sessions and a group for young people, yet after a few months I felt comfortable talking about the memories that I built with my dad and the struggle that followed his death.

Looking back at this time it gives me great self-pride to be able to talk about my own experience openly and to know that to have been able to do that I overcame the most painful time of my life.

No one should ever face this journey alone.

And, having experienced this first hand, I feel an obligation to make sure that young bereaved people across the country have the accessibility of these services and are able to secure the level of support that I did.”

Dan is only 17 years old, and he tells a story that is all too common for people of his age. Too many young people are unable to access what they need, as Christine Jardine said. For those who do lose a loved one, it is imperative that they know they are not alone and that they know where to turn.