A Directory of Bereavement Support Organisations and Services in London

Direct answer

If you need to talk to someone about grief right now, Cruse Bereavement Support's national helpline (0808 808 1677) and Samaritans (116 123, available 24/7) are the two most widely-used starting points in the UK. If the bereavement involves a child - either a child who has died, or a child grieving a parent or sibling - Grief Encounter (0808 802 0111), a London-based charity, and Child Bereavement UK (0800 02 888 40) both specialise in this. Marie Curie (0800 090 2309) and Sue Ryder offer bereavement support that isn't limited to the families they cared for directly, and At A Loss (ataloss.org) is a useful directory in its own right if none of the above feels like the right fit. None of these services require you to have finished sorting out a property or an estate before you contact them - the emotional and practical sides of this period are meant to run in parallel, not one after the other.

Contents

• How to use this directory
• National UK bereavement helplines
• Support for children, young people and their families
• London-specific and local services
• Specialist and circumstance-specific support
• Official government guidance and admin
• Choosing where to start if you're not sure
• What a first phone call actually involves
• Getting support alongside a house clearance
• Related guides on this site
• Frequently asked questions

How to use this directory

A directory, not a ranking - different services suit different situations.

This page lists real, currently operating UK bereavement organisations, grouped by who they tend to help best - general grief support, children and young people, local London services, and more specific circumstances. None of the organisations listed here are ranked against each other, because the "best" one depends entirely on your situation: who has died, your relationship to them, whether children are involved, and whether you need to talk to someone today or would prefer written information to read in your own time.

Every phone number and website on this page was checked directly against the organisation's own site before publishing. Charities occasionally change their opening hours, helpline numbers or service structure, so if a number on this page doesn't connect, check the organisation's own website first - the links below go straight to their official sites.

National UK bereavement helplines

The organisations most people reach for first, available UK-wide.

Cruse and Samaritans are the two names most people recognise, and for good reason - Cruse is dedicated specifically to bereavement, while Samaritans exists for anyone finding things hard to cope with, at any hour. If you're not sure which of the other organisations fits your situation, At A Loss and The Good Grief Trust both function as directories in their own right, pointing you toward a more specific service rather than trying to be that service themselves.

When a child has lost a parent, sibling, or other close family member - or when a child themselves has died - general adult bereavement services are often not the best starting point. Several UK charities specialise specifically in this age group:

• Grief Encounter — a London-based charity (based in Cricklewood, North-West London) supporting bereaved children, young people and their families, with a helpline on 0808 802 0111 and services delivered across London and nationally.
• Child Bereavement UK — supports families when a baby or child of any age dies, or when a child is grieving someone important to them, with a helpline on 0800 02 888 40 and training for professionals who work with bereaved families.
• Winston's Wish — a national childhood bereavement charity offering practical and emotional support to grieving children and the adults supporting them, including online resources aimed directly at children and teenagers.

If you're clearing a property and children in the family are old enough to be aware of what's happening, it's worth involving one of these services early rather than waiting until the clearance itself raises difficult questions - several offer guidance specifically about how to talk to a child about a relative's home being cleared or sold.

London-specific and local services

Most national charities also run local, in-person services - worth checking even if you've only seen their national number.

Several of the national organisations above run local branches, drop-in groups or face-to-face counselling specifically within London, in addition to their national phone and online support:

• Grief Encounter is itself a London-headquartered charity, which means its services are especially geared toward London families, alongside the national helpline and online support it offers across the UK.
• Cruse Bereavement Support operates local branches and volunteer-led services in a number of London boroughs - their website's support pages let you search for the nearest local service, in addition to the national helpline number listed above.
• Hospice-based bereavement services. Several London hospices - including those run by Marie Curie and Sue Ryder, among others - offer bereavement counselling to local families, sometimes extending beyond families who used the hospice's end-of-life care directly. It's worth asking a local hospice directly, since availability and eligibility criteria vary.
• GP-based referrals. A GP in London can refer into NHS-funded bereavement counselling or local mental health services where grief is significantly affecting someone's day-to-day functioning, sleep, or ability to work - this sits alongside charity support rather than replacing it.

Because local service availability changes - a particular branch's volunteer capacity, drop-in schedule or waiting list can shift from month to month - the most reliable way to find current local provision is to start with a national number or website above and ask what's available in your specific London borough right now, rather than relying on older local listings that may be out of date.

Certain kinds of loss carry specific legal, practical or emotional complications that a general bereavement charity may not be set up to address in full. The Good Grief Trust (thegoodgrieftrust.org) maintains a directory specifically organised by these circumstances, including specialist helplines for:

• Loss by suicide. Specialist suicide bereavement services exist separately from general grief support, recognising the particular guilt, shock and sometimes police or coroner involvement that can accompany this kind of death.
• Sudden or unexpected death. Where a death was sudden - an accident, a sudden medical event, or a death requiring further investigation - grief often arrives alongside added practical uncertainty about when probate and a house clearance can legally begin, since an executor's authority to act is tied to the Grant of Probate rather than the date of death itself. Our guide to probate house clearance timing covers that authority question in detail.
• Bereavement by homicide or murder. Specific charities exist to support families through the combination of grief and a criminal justice process, which runs on an entirely different timeline to an ordinary bereavement.
• Pregnancy and baby loss. Organisations such as Sands (Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Charity) specialise specifically in this area, which general bereavement services are not always best placed to address.
• Loss of a partner or spouse. Charities such as WAY Widowed and Young focus specifically on the practical and social isolation that can come with losing a partner at a younger age than most peers have experienced it.

If your situation falls into one of these categories, starting with The Good Grief Trust's directory or At A Loss's search tool is usually faster than trying to find the right specialist charity through a general search, since both are specifically built to route you to the right place.

Official government guidance and admin

Not emotional support, but essential - and easy to lose track of during this period.

Alongside emotional support, there's a separate category of official, practical guidance worth knowing about, since it covers obligations and entitlements that don't wait for grief to ease:

• GOV.UK - "What to do after someone dies" covers registering a death, the overall administrative checklist, and links through to related guidance on probate, benefits and tax.
• GOV.UK - Tell Us Once is a service, offered after registering a death in most of England, Scotland and Wales, that reports the death to most relevant government organisations (HMRC, DWP, passport office, DVLA, local council) in one go, rather than contacting each separately.
• GOV.UK - Bereavement Support Payment explains a benefit that some widowed spouses or civil partners may be entitled to claim, with time limits that make it worth checking early rather than well after the event.

None of this is emotional support, but it's easy for these practical, time-sensitive tasks to slip while you're focused on grief and on clearing a property - worth bookmarking this section and working through it when you have the capacity, rather than trying to remember it all from memory during an already difficult period.

If you've read this far and still aren't sure which organisation to contact first, a few simple questions can narrow it down quickly:

• Do you need to talk to someone right now, outside normal office hours? Samaritans (116 123) is the one service on this list genuinely available 24/7 for exactly this.
• Is a child or young person directly affected? Start with Grief Encounter or Child Bereavement UK rather than a general adult service.
• Is the loss tied to a specific circumstance - suicide, sudden death, pregnancy loss, bereavement by homicide? The Good Grief Trust's directory will route you to a specialist service faster than a general helpline.
• Not sure which category you fall into, or need something more general? Cruse's national helpline (0808 808 1677) is the broadest, most widely-used starting point, open to anyone bereaved for any reason.

There's no wrong door here - if you contact a service that turns out not to be the best fit, a good bereavement organisation will usually point you toward one that is, rather than leaving you to start the search again from scratch.

For anyone who has never contacted a bereavement helpline before, not knowing what will happen on the call is sometimes its own small barrier. In practice, a first call to any of the organisations above tends to follow a similar, low-pressure pattern:

• You won't be asked to commit to anything. A first call is almost always just a conversation - helplines like Cruse and Samaritans don't require you to sign up for ongoing counselling or a fixed programme of support just to talk once.
• You can call without knowing exactly what you want to say. Volunteers and staff on these lines are used to callers who aren't sure where to start, who are calling mid-task (including during a clearance), or who just need to talk without a specific question in mind.
• You'll usually be asked a few basic questions first. Most services ask who has died, your relationship to them, and roughly how recently, mainly so they can point you toward the most relevant further support if you want it - not as a gatekeeping step.
• Follow-up support is optional, not automatic. Many callers use a helpline once and don't follow up further; others are offered ongoing telephone support, local group sessions, or a referral to face-to-face counselling if that feels more useful. The choice is yours, not something decided for you on the first call.
• Calls are confidential. None of these organisations share details of your call with other family members, your GP, or anyone else without your consent, except in the rare situation where someone's safety is at immediate risk.

If picking up the phone feels like too big a step on a given day, most of these organisations also offer web chat, email support, or written information you can read at your own pace - worth checking each organisation's own website if a phone call isn't the right fit for you right now.

It's worth saying plainly: there's no expectation that you deal with your grief first and the property second, or the other way around. In practice, most families end up doing both at once - contacting a bereavement organisation in the same week they're also getting quotes for a clearance, or pausing a clearance halfway through a room because something unexpected has surfaced emotionally. Both are normal, and neither should be treated as a sign that the other is being done wrong.

If the practical side of clearing a property is what currently feels most overwhelming, our guide to organising a house clearance after a bereavement walks through that process step by step, at whatever pace suits your family. If it's the emotional side that feels harder right now, our guide to coping with the emotional weight of clearing a deceased parent's home covers grief, decision fatigue and family dynamics specifically in the context of this kind of task - and several of the organisations listed on this page are referenced there too, for exactly this reason.

• Organising the clearance itself. Our guide to organising a house clearance after a bereavement is the main step-by-step companion to this directory.
• The emotional side of the task. Our guide to coping with the emotional weight of clearing a deceased parent's home covers grief, decision fatigue and family dynamics in more depth.
• Working out when a clearance can legally start. Our probate house clearance timing guide explains what an executor can and can't authorise before the Grant of Probate is issued.
• If you're managing this from abroad. Our guide to remote house clearance from overseas or long distance covers coordinating a clearance when you can't be at the property in person.
• Dividing belongings fairly. Our guide to fairly dividing family belongings between relatives without disputes covers methods for avoiding friction when more than one relative has an interest in what's kept.