It comes to my notice that the South London Association of Bereavement Services has a limit on accepting potential bereavement volunteers onto its very good course that we patronise; they require a diploma in counselling skills for entry. I don’t mind people coming into bereavement volunteering with an interest in moving towards being counsellors, lots of them do. But I cannot be alone in thinking that the sort of person who goes on counselling skills courses is a particular sort of person, and by limiting entry to them, we are excluding what I might describe as the relentlessly ordinary salt-of-the-earth type with just life experience from our bereavement support service. Frankly, I think our bereaved clients might well prefer the salt of the earth type over the keen counsellor type, but I know that’s heresy to the professionalisers of personal help. Of course it’s efficient not to have to run our own course with flexible entry requirements. And of course people get a lot out of learning with people from other organisations. So there you are

Pics of the rebuilding at St Christopher’s, now under way, in solidarity with all colleagues working through a difficult time, to make things better in the future:
Temporary huts, decanted staff