AtaLoss has added several key staff in order to reinforce its role as a national signposter

Since 2017, AtALoss has provided an online bereavement signposting website, which directs to over 2,000 services across the country for holistic bereavement support and wellbeing. It has also developed The Bereavement Journey® peer support programme, which since being republished in 2023 has already spread to over 345 communities.

The success and potential of both initiatives has led to several awards and has recently attracted funding to 'turbo charge' the charity’s offering to society, with increased capacity and a focus on partnership.   

The charity was founded in 2016 by the Revd Canon Yvonne Tulloch after the unexpected death of her husband, which derailed her life.  She realised that grief is not generally understood and bereavement poorly supported - to the detriment of one in 10 people per annum in the UK who suffer bereavement.

The recent injection of seed funding has enabled the charity to quadruple in size to meet increased demand, and has led to the arrival of several key directors:

Dr Roger Greene - previous CEO of 2 NHS trusts and with a background in behavioural science and leadership in the public, commercial and charitable sectors - has been appointed Deputy CEO and leader of the charity’s emerging Bereavement Friendly Communities project. 

Revd Nicky Grey has been appointed as Head of Church Engagement, having been delivering The Bereavement Journey programme in prison, where it has been helping women process traumatic and unresolved loss. 

Andrew Shaw - with substantial business, commercial and public sector experience - has been appointed Director of Operations & Finance. 

And Roy Stannard has arrived as Director of Marketing & Income Generation, having successfully led the comms and income growth at the social poverty charity, Off The Fence. 

An office has also been established near Chichester and work has begun on improving the charity’s signposting further. 

“Bereavement is a public health issue” says Yvonne. “Mental and physical health and wellbeing are significantly impacted by unsupported grief - current and suppressed - plus there are other economic and social impacts, including relationship breakdown, job loss, addiction, debt and crime.  Everyone is bereaved sooner or later and not supporting them sufficiently is costing the UK economy billions of pounds. 

This funding has enabled us to gather a much larger and very gifted team to meet increased demand and bring the issues more to the country’s attention.  We hope it will represent a gear change and that we will continue to grow - to address the huge societal need for bereavement support and prevention of its damaging outcomes.  Consideration of the impact of grief on society is long overdue.” 

ENDS

AtaLoss provides the UK’s bereavement signposting website - collaborating with and bringing together over 2,000 local and national organisations into a comprehensive and regularly updated directory of bereavement services and information, providing timely access to bereavement support, which is easily filterable according to preference, location and the circumstances of the death. 

The charity also provides the widely acclaimed The Bereavement Journey® peer group support programme, offered in over 345 locations across the UK.

Yvonne Tulloch is available for an interview. 

To arrange an interview, for comments or to speak to AtaLoss about its work, please contact Adam May, Press Manager for the charity: [email protected] or 07736 949 869