Liverpool charity appeals for survival help after ‘sucker punch’ funding loss

A Liverpool charity which supports hundreds of families after the loss of a child has appealed to the city for help to survive.

Love, Jasmine, which was set up by Kathy and Rob Lapsley after the death of their six-year-old daughter, has warned it could be forced to close its doors after losing vital funding.

The charity based in Wavertree Business Village has been told that a three-year National Lottery Grant of £255,571 – around 35-40% of its funding – will not be continued after it comes to an end in July.

Kathy, 49, says the news has shaken the tiny organisation:

“It has been a sucker punch; like a real blow to the stomach.

“We knew there could be a potential for it to happen because the funding priorities and criteria had changed, but we remained hopeful as we felt our application was still able to meet what was required and because of how important our charity is to the families we support.

“Running the charity is a huge responsibility for me and Rob and we certainly feel the weight on our shoulders of what we’ve created and how much it’s needed by so many people.”

But Kathy adds:

“We are passionate about what we do and what we offer, and we will fight to keep our doors open as bereaved parents and the families we support should not be left to cope alone.

“We have seen how this city can come together to support other wonderful organisations like Zoe’s Place – who we work with to provide their counselling service – and we are praying that they will do the same for us.

“So many families rely on us to help them through the darkest times of their lives, and we need to be able to keep supporting them and, sadly, others in the future.”

The charity was established in 2016 following the death of Jasmine Lapsley, who choked while the family were on holiday in North Wales two years earlier.

It offers:

* Emotional support, including one-to-one counselling for bereaved parents, grandparents, and siblings, including trauma-based therapies. They also offer family group work and support groups, with regular coffee mornings open to all family members.

* Practical support. Families may need help getting the right help and referrals to other agencies, and Love, Jasmine offers this as well as transport to and from appointments.

* Self-care. The charity promotes self-care to help families develop their own coping strategies, with complementary therapies, and free yoga and meditation classes.

Love, Jasmine has already cancelled complementary and wellbeing therapies, along with finance for transport, and it has stopped taking on new referrals. It is also having conversations with families about winding their counselling sessions down earlier than they normally would.

“This is a milestone year for us but instead of celebrating our 10^th anniversary as we’d been planning, we are fighting to survive,” Kathy goes on. “We have built the charity up to meet the growing demand for our support, as we were encouraged to do, and now face having to scale down or even stop what we do.

“We support so many vulnerable families and are having to limit the support that is, in some cases, literally lifesaving; and they are now worrying about what’s going to happen next.”

With fears that it could close by Christmas unless ‘a miracle occurs’, Love, Jasmine is seeking commissioning from the NHS from which most of the charity’s referrals come and which would see more long term funding and sustainability.

And it has set up a Just Giving page to raise money to give it a lifeline while seeking further funding from other sources.

Neither Kathy nor Rob, who have three sons aged 10, 14 and 16, will give up hope.

“There’s time, even if it’s not much time, but we have seen how this city comes together.

“We just fear that not as many people are aware of us and what we do for the hundreds of families we support or even give advice to on the phone each year as they might be for some of the larger charities,” explains Kathy.

“But we are there for those families who lose a child from 20 weeks pregnancy, right through to the loss of an adult child. We also support families whose child has received a terminal diagnosis, and if our doors close it will be so detrimental to the city.

“You can only understand loss and what we have been through if you’ve been in this position yourself, and it’s that knowledge and understanding that runs through everything we do. It’s an unimaginable grief.

“Knowing there are other bereaved parents here makes it easier to build up trust – many of our counsellors even are bereaved parents themselves.

“That’s why,” she vows, “we have written to our MPs and are trying to build momentum for support.

“It’s not over until it’s over and we have fire in our belly to stay and survive.”

Find out more about Love, Jasmine here.

Support Love, Jasmine and donate, here.

Find out more of the incredible work of our local charities here.

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