Sharon Daley started receiving support from St Helena Hospice and soon after, so did Jude. Through creative sessions with family support worker Sue Leavett, he began to express how he was feeling about his nana’s illness. When Sharon died earlier this year, Jude continued talking to Sue. His mum, Sarah Rogers, shares how St Helena Hospice supports Jude:

Every week they give me a play by play of what he's done, but the things they do honestly have changed how I parent as well because it's a bit daunting when someone dies, you don't really know what to do for yourself and what to say to make yourself feel better but when you've got little ones involved as well, it's really, really hard.

Sue has been amazing with Jude. He's very switched on for a 5 year old, so you couldn't say to him what other people were saying, ‘oh nana has gone over the rainbow’ because he would say ‘well it's a fragment of light, so how have you gone over a fragment of light?’ There was no way that was going to pass with him, but Sue first time meeting him knew exactly what to say and how to say it to him, and I think that's the blessing of it; they adapt to each child and how each child works.

The first week she asked him, how are you feeling? The biggest struggle we've had with Jude is he confused Covid for cancer, so he thought you could catch cancer and whilst my mum was in here, he said ‘I can't cuddle Nana and I'm sad’ and I said why and he said ‘because I don't want to catch cancer’. That broke my mum's heart and she said ‘no we can't have that, we'll get someone’, and  that minute went to a nurse and said ‘can someone come and talk to my grandson?’ And that was when Sue and the family support team first stepped on the scene and they said we're going to be here to get Jude used to them before anything happens so it's not a shock when it does happen.

So Sue phoned me and we had quite a few over the phone meetings and she would ask how his behaviour was, things like that, and at the time he didn't really have any signs of any struggle. I don't think he knew what was coming and it was just his normal really, like Nana being hooked up to chemo, that was normal for him, he would even say he could do it he saw it so much.

Even with Evie now, she sees Jude talk to it so if she is afraid, we'll say here where’s your worry person? And she’ll go get her one and put it in bed with her and yes, she's amazing with it as well.

I wouldn't know to do that, I wouldn't know half the stuff, but it's helping educate me to be a better parent as well as helping Jude, go through that and then know in the long run we can do these things for him is genuinely amazing, he's changed definitely.

One session he had quite a lot of anger built up, so they made a pillow that he could punch and it does help having a pillow because we can take it with us. So when we go to the caravan we’re like, ‘right, have you got your worry person? Have you got your pillow? And he's like ‘yeah, got all of that’, and he feels better bringing that with him. I said to him the other day, how do you feel and he goes ‘I feel like a superhero with it, I've got my sort of armour and I'm ready to go’. 

Sue’s amazing. She's done wonders with Jude, she really has. It's so lovely having people that understand each child. 

The children absolutely love it up here. We've got some money to donate later because we had loads of excess stuff at mums. So with everything that we are doing that's sad, we make it into a positive for him. He's really proud of himself because we've managed to raise over £500 for the Hospice and he's so chuffed to be able to do that.

Jude’s very much like right, what can we do to help? And that's his first thought of helping back, and I'm glad because he can educate people and he does go into school and go ‘have you heard of St Helena Hospice?’

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