Finding light in thedarkness
Beyond the Darkness
Legacy Report
Luna Foundation
17 March 2022 to 31 March 2025
‘What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.’
– T.S. Eliot
Luna Foundation was born from a very personal place. From my own experience of losing my dad to suicide aged nine, a loss that profoundly affected my life and the lives of those around me.
Losing a parent this way in childhood shapes everything. How you see yourself, how you feel in the world, how you relate to others, and how you make sense of the world.
But when I looked around, I saw a system that barely recognised these children existed. No national data, no clear pathways of support, and a silence that followed them everywhere – at home, in education settings, and beyond. No acknowledgement of the risks to their mental health and increased suicide rates. Just a vacuum of unmet needs fuelled by fear, awkwardness and the unspoken.
That’s why I conducted international research through my Churchill Fellowship and created Luna Foundation to bring the best practice I found around the world to the UK. To break that silence. To shine a light into that gap and say, these children matter. Their grief matters, their stories matter. We pledged to do something about it.
Over the past three years, Luna has trained more than 780 professionals, provided guidance for education settings, influenced policy conversations, and advocated for children trying to make sense of this immeasurable loss. And we’ve done that as a lived experience-led organisation, shaped at every step by those we existed to serve, guided by both research and direct experience.
We’re closing Luna having fulfilled all our contractual obligations. We’ve paid all our bills, closed responsibly and we haven’t let anyone down. That matters to me.
nding light in thedarkness
There are so many people to thank including Iona Lawrence at The Decelerator for helping us navigate a good ending for Luna. The Luna Board, who’ve stood beside me through some incredibly tough moments, Nancy Benn, and the wider team. Our Luna Lived Experience Network, whose courage and honesty shaped everything we did. Our funders, who believed in this work when others couldn’t see it. And everyone who shared their story with us so that we could lift the cloak of invisibility for children bereaved by parental suicide.
I want to be completely honest. Being a small organisation, trying to change a system that wasn’t ready to hear us, has been exhausting. After giving all I could for as long as I could, the financial and human cost of keeping Luna afloat became too much.
This is not the ending I imagined. But in the circumstances, it’s the right one. Luna was always about highlighting the urgent need to improve the way we care for suicide bereaved children. We were here to ignite a light, and that light doesn’t go out just because we’re closing our doors.
We want Luna’s light to pass to you all. I hope you can find inspiration in this final report to help suicide bereaved children to find light in the darkness. Make sure they don’t remain invisible and unsupported, so that we can break the chain of poor mental health and suicide risk they face.
It’s been the honour of my life to be at the helm of Luna these past three years, advocating for children affected by parental suicide, and now it’s time to pass on Luna’s light.
Signing off with gratitude and hope,
Anna Wardley Founder and CEO, Luna Foundation
Not talking about it at all fed into the idea that what had happened was shameful.
I was told my dad died of a brain tumour. This made me think this was hereditary and that I might get one. It eroded my trust in what my mother tells me.
I was seven years old when I first witnessed my mum’s attempt to end her life and I learnt how to call for an ambulance.
Claire, Luna Lived Experience Network
Chloe, Luna Lived Experience Network
Simon, Luna Lived Experience Network
‘Very grateful to you both for this training session, it reflected your knowledge, skills and experience in the painful arena that is parental suicide. I could have done with you a few years ago as I was a social worker who worked directly with families, many of which had a parent who had taken their own life.’
‘Great training, offered a really good range of resources and approaches for supporting young children bereaved by suicide and giving staff working with them a good understanding of the issues that might arise for these children and their families.’
‘A really informative session that has made me think about my own practice going forward.’
Participant in Luna Suicide Bereavement Training for Early Years Practitioners in Greater Manchester
Participant in Luna Suicide Bereavement Training for Early Years Practitioners in Greater Manchester
Participant in Luna Suicide Bereavement Training in Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes
Luna’s journey:
Our story
Luna Foundation was created to shine a light into the darkness faced by children and young people bereaved by parental suicide. For too long, these children have been invisible, overlooked by policy, unsupported by services, and left to carry their complicated grief in silence.
Founded by Anna Wardley to implement the findings of her Churchill Fellowship report Time to Count, Luna was shaped by lived experience every step of the way.
Luna’s work was always about breaking the silence, opening space for honest conversations, and making sure suicide-bereaved children were seen, heard, and supported.
Luna hit the ground running in March 2022 and didn’t waste any time getting on with the urgent task of improving support for children after a parent or carer ends their own life.
Here’s a look back at the key milestones from Luna’s three-year journey…
2021: The first spark
• Luna’s light was lit with the publication of Anna Wardley’s Churchill Fellowship report entitled Time to Count, exposing the silence around suicide-bereaved children and the lack of support available.
• Anna formed a plan to create an organisation to break that silence and shine a light on the needs of children left behind after parental suicide.
2022: Lighting the way
• Luna Foundation CIC formed on 17 March 2022.
• We delivered our first training in Portsmouth, created practical guides for professionals and families, and formed the Luna Lived Experience Network, ensuring those with direct experience of parental suicide shaped all we did.
• Shackleton Leader award, Churchill Fellowship Activate funding and Sounddelivery Media Spokesperson Programme turbo-charged our first year.
• Luna CEO Anna Wardley delivered a Four Thought Talk on BBC Radio 4 entitled When a parent dies by suicide, taking our work to a national audience of more than 500,000 listeners..
2023: Spreading the light
• Training rolled out across Greater Manchester, Kent, Medway, Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes.
• Developed training for early years practitioners funded by an RSA Catalyst grant and created a suicide bereavement policy template for education settings.
• Continued to campaign for national data and proper recognition and support for suicide bereaved children.
• Collaboration with several leading UK universities and aligned organisations to share our knowledge and support research and projects focused on suicide bereavement during childhood.
2024: Facing hard truths
• Training rollout continued in Cambridgeshire, Peterborough, Stoke-on-Trent and Gibraltar.
• Luna named one of the UK’s top 100 social enterprises in NatWest SE100 Awards and CEO Anna Wardley recognised as a Pioneering Leader finalist and named on WISE100 list of top 100 women leading social enterprises.
• But with sustainable funding out of reach, we made the difficult but necessary decision to close Luna. We announced the plan to pursue an orderly and responsible ending on 26 November 2024.
• Anna Wardley and Luna Lived Experience Network Facilitator Maike Mullenders delivered a joint keynote at the Expert Citizen Insight Awards in Stoke-on-Trent, where Luna is recognised in the Expert Citizen Listening Award category for championing the voices of those with lived experience of parental suicide.
2025: Passing the light
• Luna’s final months focused on sharing our learnings and training as many professionals as possible, ensuring the light could keep shining through others.
• Our final series of training sessions were delivered for people working with children and young people in Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes in February and March 2025.
• Luna collaborated with the Association of Postpartum Psychosis to develop guidance for a new section of their website focused on supporting children who have experienced the death of their mother.
• To share our expertise in building a successful lived experience-led training model, we were commissioned by a national charity to help them develop a framework for their own lived experience-led training programme.
• At Beyond the Darkness, our legacy event held on 20 March 2025, we asked everyone to commit to carrying Luna’s light into their own work.
• On 31 March 2025, Luna closes, but our light will live on in every professional trained, every policy changed, and every conversation started.
‘This training is a must for anyone who works with children and young people. We must always be prepared to support them should they be bereaved by a parent through suicide.’
‘I already had some knowledge and experience of supporting children following the suicide of a parent, but my key takeaway was the longer term impact for the child and the numbers of children affected.’
‘At a meeting today a colleague from the police stated that as a result of the [Luna Suicide Bereavement] training they are now starting to record the number of dependents as part of their real-time data collection.’
Participant in Luna Suicide Bereavement Training in Gibraltar
Local authority commissioner of Luna Suicide Bereavement Training
Participant in Luna Suicide Bereavement Training in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough
Luna and our training in numbers Findinglight
3
YEARS OF IMPROVING SUPPORT FOR CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE BEREAVED BY SUICIDE
19 LUNA LIVED EXPERIENCE NETWORK MEMBERS
204 DIFFERENT JOB ROLES COMPLETED TRAINING
11 AREAS COMMISSIONED LUNA’S TRAINING
239 LUNA AMBASSADORS
784 PROFESSIONALS TRAINED
2,352
TRAINING HOURS LOGGED BY PROFESSIONALS
392
LUNA SUICIDE BEREAVEMENT TRAINING PARTICIPANTS PROVIDED FEEDBACK
98%
WOULD RCOMMEND LUNA SUICIDE BEREAVEMENT TRAINING TO A COLLEAGUE
59
EDUCATION SETINGS ATTENDED A SUICIDE BEREAVEMENT POLICY WEBINAR
99%
FELT MORE CONFIDENT TO SUPPORT SUICIDE BEREAVED CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE
100% SAID THEY LEARNED THE IMPORTANCE OF SUPPORTING SUICIDE BEREAVED CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE
Luna’s lasting light: Our legacy
• The 780+ professionals Luna trained, who now have the skills and confidence to stand with suicide-bereaved children.
• Tools and resources we created, grounded in lived experience.
• Education settings that adopted Luna’s suicide bereavement policy template.
• The shift in awareness among education settings, local authorities and funders.
• Connections we built among those with lived experience of parental suicide, who found comfort and strength in each other’s stories.
• Seeds of policy change planted to ensure the children we stood for will no longer be ignored in the systems meant to support them.
Luna’s light was never meant to shine alone. It was always meant to ignite other lights, so more people could see what had been hidden for too long. That light is now in your hands.
Growing up, losing a parent to suicide, I spent so much time hiding what I thought was a dirty secret from my peers.
I think now as an adult, ‘what else could that energy have been spent on had the support I received growing up helped me to realise this was not the case?’
Hannah, Luna Lived Experience Network
Luna guides
There was another girl whose dad had died from cancer around the same time. I always remember watching everybody going up and talking to her and being sympathetic. But nobody talked to me.
I was 19 when my dad ended his life by suicide. The impact affected every aspect of my life as well as my entire family’s.
Dad said he was taking his own life because he couldn’t cope, it was a strategy he taught me. For me, suicide was always an option.
Stella, Luna Lived Experience Network
Maike, Luna Lived Experience Network
Stacey, Luna Lived Experience Network
Parting thoughts: Luna’s insights
• The work to improve support for suicide bereaved children is urgent, the need is huge, and the system is not ready.
• Suicide bereavement training for people who work with children and young people is vital and needs to be mandatory.
• Lived experience leadership is powerful, but it comes at a cost.
• Suicide bereaved children are everywhere but hidden in plain sight.
• Education settings have a crucial role but are not equipped to provide support.
• Short-term, rigid funding makes it impossible to build lasting change.
• Whole organisations need to be funded, not just outputs.
• Interrogate what success looks like and don’t simply measure it through numbers and growth. Advocacy, research and campaigning matter too.
• Endings need to be supported and funded as well as beginnings to safeguard knowledge and expertise.
Even today, I still struggle. If you don’t get support at the time, you carry it with you.
Meeting others with similar experiences has meant so much to me, especially because I never had anyone to relate to when I was growing up.
After losing my father to suicide aged five, it is only nearly 30 years later that I have been able to talk openly about the trauma I’ve experienced.
Claire, Luna Lived Experience Network
Hannah, Luna Lived Experience Network
Sally, Luna Lived Experience Network
Pre-training data revealed professionals lacked confidence and policies to support with suicide bereaved children despite most having already faced this situation (48% on multiple occasions): Findinglight in
Have you encountered a child or young person (up to the age of 25) impacted by the suicide, or attempted suicide, of a parent or primary caregiver in your professional capacity?
How confident do you currently feel to provide support to child or young person bereaved by the suicide of a parent or primary caregiver?
*Based on 498 respondents who completed Luna’s pre-training questionnaire
Supporting children and young people after suicide: Luna’s parting principles
#1. Be honest from the start
Children and young people need a clear, age-appropriate explanation as soon as possible. Even the hardest truths hurt less than silence, confusion or false accounts.
#2. Create safe spaces
Whether at home, in education settings, or in the community, children and young people need safe spaces where they can talk, ask questions, or say nothing at all, without fear or judgement.
#3. Model open conversations
When adults talk openly about mental health, suicide, grief, and difficult feelings, it gives children permission to do the same. Open channels of communication reduce suicide risk in those bereaved by suicide.
#4. Nothing is off limits
Confronting questions, anger, relief, confusion, all of it belongs. How and why a parent died is key to a child’s understanding of what happened. Adults need to be ready to listen and respond without shutting down difficult conversations.
#5. Look beyond the surface
Children bereaved by suicide often mask their own complex grief to protect surviving caregivers from further distress. Some focus on studies or sport to prove they were worth staying alive for. This can give the impression they are coping well when they are not.
#6. Education settings are key
Education settings are often the only stable place left for a suicide bereaved child. Every setting, from nurseries and primary schools, to colleges and universities, needs a clear policy, proper training and the confidence to respond with care and honesty.
#7. Focus on the early years
Research shows that children who experience a parent’s suicide when aged 2 to 5 have the highest incidence of suicide themselves. Timely support is vital.
#8. Peer support is golden
Connecting with others who have been through the same thing is one of the most powerful ways to reduce isolation, shame and self-blame. The gold standard for support is in a group with others bereaved by suicide, and failing that, ensure that they are not the only one in a group.
#9. Prioritise support for children
Suicide is the leading cause of death in men and women of child rearing age. Children who experience the death of a parent by suicide need to be at the heart of suicide bereavement support, not only a ‘bolt-on’ if resources permit.
#10. Counting suicide bereaved children is vital
Until we start counting children bereaved by parental suicide, they will remain invisible. This is a major barrier to support.
‘The moon was shining, and the water was so clear, that it was as if the world had been turned upside down, and the stars were swimming in the water instead of the sky.’
– Winnie the Pooh
There is no easy way to close something you have poured your heart into, especially when there is still urgent work to be done. There is grief and a deep sense of loss in this ending, not just for me, but for the whole Luna community. But there is pride too. Because Luna gave a voice to those who learnt as children that their parent’s death through suicide wasn’t to be spoken about. Because we broke silences and created spaces where conversations opened up. Because we stood for these children when the system would not.
Luna may be closing, but the work, the fight for better support for suicide-bereaved children, does not end here.
Luna was named after the moon, a light that shines in the darkness. That light was never meant to belong to one organisation. It was always meant to pass from hand to hand, to spread further than we could ever reach on our own.
That light now lives in all of you.
It lives in every funder who rethinks how they support lived experience leaders. Every policymaker who asks, ‘What about the children?’ Every teacher who finds the courage to break the silence. Every professional, parent, and young person who refuses to look away.
That is how change happens. Not because one organisation stays standing forever, but because its light keeps moving. Because more and more people choose to carry it forward.
Finding light in thedarkness
So, as Luna’s own journey comes to an end, I want to ask you how you could carry forward the light from Luna. Maybe it is a change you will make in your own work. Maybe it is a conversation you will start. Maybe it is a child you will see differently because of what you have read today.
If you are willing, I would love you to share your commitment online using the hashtag #passthelight. It might be something small or something bold. It might be personal or it may be something you’ll do in your professional capacity. Either way, it will help to keep this conversation out of the shadows and these commitments will become part of Luna’s legacy.
My only ask, my only hope, is that you carry Luna’s light with you. Into your work. Into your conversations. Into your decisions. Into the way you see these children.
Because they are still here, even if we will not be. They are still grieving, often in shame and silence, even if no one is counting them. They are still waiting for the silence to break whilst they deal with the lifelong impact of parental suicide. We owe it to them to make that happen.
Thank you. For walking with us. For believing in us. And for carrying Luna’s light forward.
Anna Wardley Founder and CEO, Luna Foundation
31 March 2025
An open letter to the children we stood for
Dear you,
We see you. We see the way your world shifted the day your parent died by suicide. We see the silence that crept in because no one knew what to say. We see how you carried your questions, your anger, your sadness and your love, even when you had no idea where to put them.
We know what it feels like when it seems nobody understands. To sit in a classroom where everyone else’s life feels normal, while yours is split into a before and an after. To wonder if you can even say the word suicide, or if it’s safer to let people believe something else.
We see your courage. Whether you have spoken about what happened or kept it deep inside, whether you have cried every day or felt numb, whether you have asked every question or none at all. However you are grieving, it takes courage to carry on.
That is why Luna was created. To make sure you are seen. To make sure the adults around you have the knowledge, confidence and courage to support you properly. To break the silence, so you never have to carry your story alone.
Luna Foundation is closing now, but you will always matter. Your story, your loss, your love – all of it matters. You deserved better from the systems around you, and there are people out there who are determined to make sure the children who come after you are seen and heard in ways you may not have been.
There will always be people who want to hear your story. There will always be people who understand, even if they are not the people you expect. There will always be light, even in the darkest moments.
The one thing we want you to remember is this. What happened to your parent is not your fault.
Your parent loved you beyond measure. You will always carry that love with you, even though they are no longer here. Never feel that you were not enough. You are loved and you are not alone. Your grief is not something to hide. You deserve support, care, and space to make sense of your story in your own time, in your own way.
We are proud to have stood alongside you for these past few years. Even though Luna is closing, the work to make sure children like you are seen and supported will go on.
As you navigate the world as somebody who, like me and many of us at Luna, lost a parent to suicide during childhood, remember that your light matters. It will help guide you through even the darkest moments..
With love, solidarity and a supportive hand on your back, now and always.
Anna Wardley, founder and CEO, Luna Foundation
‘Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.’
– Sir Winston Churchill
Finding light in thedarkness
Team Luna including members of the Luna Lived Experience Network marking Luna’s first anniversary on 17 March 2023 at RSA House in London.
(Credit: Dan Towers | Flick Digital)
