The Compassionate Friends is a self-help organisation offering friendship and understanding to bereaved parents, siblings and grandparents after the death of their child(ren) and fosters the physical and emotional health of bereaved parents and their surviving child(ren).

Our aims are to:

• Offer support and friendship to any sorrowing family
• Listen with understanding
• Provide group meetings
• Give information about the grieving process
• Provide acquaintance with bereaved families whose sorrow has softened and who have found fresh hope and strength for living
• Promote more understanding among professional, medical, paramedical, police, clergy and teaching persons and the community at large of the trauma and special needs of bereaved families following the death of a child
• Establish, promote and assist metropolitan and country Chapters in their efforts to support bereaved families