The Compassionate Friends: Peer Support for Bereaved Parents and Grandparents

The Compassionate Friends is the largest peer support organization in the United States for families who have lost a child of any age, from infancy through adulthood. The group was founded in 1969 in England and has been active in the United States since 1972. Every chapter is run by bereaved parents and grandparents, not by clinicians. The cost to attend is zero. There is no requirement to share, to cry, to speak, or to come back. Many older parents find their way to a chapter months or years after their loss, having spent that time trying to handle it alone.

What makes The Compassionate Friends different from a general grief group is that every person in the room has buried a son or daughter. The mother whose 48 year old daughter died of cancer sits next to the father whose 22 year old son died in a crash and the grandmother whose 35 year old child died of an overdose. The deaths are different, the ages are different, the circumstances are different, but the foundational loss is shared. Older parents often describe the first meeting as the first room where they did not have to translate or soften what they felt.

The organization runs about 600 in-person chapters across the United States, plus dedicated online groups including a Bereaved Grandparents group, a Loss of an Adult Child group, and groups for specific causes like suicide, addiction, illness, and homicide. The website is compassionatefriends.org. The toll-free phone number is 877-969-0010 during business hours Central Time. The group also runs a free annual worldwide candle lighting on the second Sunday of December, when bereaved parents around the globe light a candle at 7 PM local time so that a wave of light circles the earth for 24 hours in memory of every child who has died.

Sources include the official Compassionate Friends national office, the Open to Hope Foundation, the Dougy Center for older bereaved adults, and the AARP grief and loss resource center.