The Compassionate Friends | Central Connecticut Chapter

The Compassionate Friends Credo

We need not walk alone. We are The Compassionate Friends. We reach out to each other with love, with understanding, and with hope. The children we mourn have died at all ages and from many different causes, but our love for them unites us. Your pain becomes my pain, just as your hope becomes my hope. We come together from all walks of life, from many different circumstances. We are a unique family because we represent many races, creeds, and relationships. We are young, and we are old. Some of us are far along in our grief, but others still feel a grief so fresh and so intensely painful that they feel helpless and see no hope. Some of us have found our faith to be a source of strength, while some of us are struggling to find answers. Some of us are angry, filled with guilt or in deep depression, while others radiate an inner peace. But whatever pain we bring to this gathering of The Compassionate Friends, it is pain we will share, just as we share with each other our love for the children who have died. We are all seeking and struggling to build a future for ourselves, but we are committed to building a future together. We reach out to each other in love to share the pain as well as the joy, share the anger as well as the peace, share the faith as well as the doubts, and help each other to grieve as well as to grow. We Need Not Walk Alone. We are The Compassionate Friends.

Our Mission

The mission of The Compassionate Friends is to assist families toward the positive resolution of grief following the death of a child of any age and to provide information to help others be supportive.

The Compassionate Friends was founded 40 years ago when a chaplain at the Warwickshire Hospital in England brought together two sets of grieving parents and realized that the support they gave each other was better than anything he, as a chaplain, could ever say or provide. Meeting around a kitchen table, the Lawleys and the Hendersons were joined by a bereaved mother and the chaplain, Simon Stephens, and The Society of the Compassionate Friends was born. The Compassionate Friends jumped across the ocean and was established in the United States and incorporated in 1978 in Illinois.

Each chapter, along with the supporting National Office, is committed to helping every bereaved parent, sibling, or grandparent who may walk through our doors or contact us.

Today more than 600 chapters serving all 50 states plus Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico offer friendship, understanding, and hope to bereaved parents, siblings, grandparents, and other family members during the natural grieving process after a child has died. Around the world more than 30 countries have a Compassionate Friends presence, encircling the globe with support so desperately needed when the worst has happened.

Our Principles

The Compassionate Friends was established based upon seven principles. The principles are reviewed and minor wording chages have been made from time to time, but they continue to stand the test of time.

  1. TCF offers friendship, understanding, and hope to bereaved parents, sbilings, and grandparents.
  2. TCF believes that bereaved parents, siblings, and grandparents can help each other toward a positive resolution of grief.
  3. TCF reaches out across society's barriers to all bereaved parents, siblings, and grandparents.
  4. TCF understands that every members has individual needs and rights.
  5. TCF reaches out to the bereaved primarily through our community of local chapters.
  6. TCF chapters belong to their members.
  7. TCF chapters are coordinated nationally to extend help to each other, and to bereaved parents, siblings, and grandparents everywhere.