Grief Café

Sunset Le Havre to Portsmouth July 2026

The Grief Café for 18- to 35-year-olds, facilitated by Jem Knight and Eleanor Stephenson, with support from me.

As always, the biggest questions when creating something from scratch for the community are: Is there a need? Will anyone attend? Will it work? Where will we find the funding?

There is a need, and piloting two sessions at York Theatre Royal has demonstrated that. A bereavement café specifically for young adults is greatly needed. The young people who attended did not know one another and had no previous connection with York Theatre Royal. They came after seeing promotional social media posts shared by the facilitators, York Theatre Royal, or local York networks.

The conversations within the space were deeply needed. Those attending were open, compassionate and receptive to one another's grief and their need to talk. For many, it was the first time they had sat in a room with others of a similar age who truly understood what it meant to experience significant bereavement. The sense of relief that came from not having to explain or justify their grief was evident throughout both sessions.

Bereavement, grief and loss are topics that our communities need to become better at talking about. Although these conversations can be difficult, they often lead to the most positive outcomes. Having a dedicated space and time for them is incredibly important.

As a dramatherapist and bereavement practitioner, I understand the importance of creating environments where people feel psychologically safe enough to express experiences that are often difficult to put into words. The arts have always offered people ways to explore, communicate and make meaning from life's most challenging experiences. Bringing bereavement support into an arts venue is therefore not simply about providing a room; it is about creating a welcoming, creative and non-clinical environment where young adults feel they belong.

York Theatre Royal is uniquely positioned to do this. As a trusted cultural organisation at the heart of the city, it already brings people together through storytelling, creativity and shared human experience. Extending that role to include spaces where people can share their own stories of loss feels both natural and necessary. It demonstrates how arts organisations can contribute meaningfully to community wellbeing, reduce social isolation and support mental health by creating opportunities for connection, reflection and belonging.

The need for this support is not small. Every 22 minutes in the UK, a child or young person is bereaved of a parent or sibling. Those children grow into young adults carrying a loss that does not disappear when they reach adulthood. Yet, too often, the support available to them fades after the first few weeks or months, while the impact of their bereavement continues throughout their lives. Young adults need spaces where they can return, talk openly and be heard whenever they need to—not just immediately after a death, but at different stages of life as their grief evolves.

The experience of a young person who has been bereaved of a parent, sibling or another significant person is very different from that of an older adult who has lost a spouse after 55 years together. While there are similarities in grief, young adults are also grieving the future they expected to have: the milestones that will never be shared, the advice they will never receive and the moments they will never experience with that person. Their peers are often unable to relate to these experiences, leaving many feeling isolated at a stage of life that is usually associated with building careers, relationships and independence.

Creating a dedicated Grief Café acknowledges these unique experiences. It tells young people that their grief matters, that it is welcome within their community and that they do not have to carry it alone. By locating this work within York Theatre Royal, we also challenge the idea that bereavement belongs only within healthcare or counselling settings. Instead, we recognise grief as part of the human experience and place it where communities naturally gather to connect, reflect and share stories.

Grief is something we learn to live with. It does not disappear; we grow around it. The opportunity to talk about it should never disappear either.

The two pilot Grief Café sessions were never about Jem, Eleanor, myself or York Theatre Royal. They were about the young people who attended. They were about creating a dedicated space for them and their grief. They demonstrated that when communities invest in compassionate, creative spaces, young people come, they connect and they support one another. Continuing this work would not simply sustain a café; it would sustain a community of belonging for bereaved young adults and demonstrate the vital role that arts organisations can play in supporting healthier, more connected communities.