A young boy who lost his mother when he was ten-years-old has benefited from a new bereavement service being piloted in South Lanarkshire.

Christopher Rins had struggled to come to terms with his grief since his mother’s death, but the new programme has allowed him to look ahead to the rest of his life.

Christopher said: "My mum she would be the one when I used to play football - she would be the one standing at the park shouting and all you could hear was her voice.  It would just be great to know your Mum would be there for you.

"I struggled with missing my mum and it also got me a bit depressed as well because I couldn’t see her again. It was really, really hard for me."

Christopher took part in trials of a new bereavement programme which has recently launched. The service is targeted specifically at children aged between ten and 14.

During weekly hour long sessions, young people chat to each other about their experiences of loss.

Anne Murphy, an educational psychologist working on the programme, said: "I feel that this is very important for young people, and for children, because they are after all very young and most of their lives are in the future. Because of that, they are naturally very future-orientated and they look forward."

Christopher has now been asked by the programme to speak to other young people affected by loss. He commented: "Don’t bottle it up. That is the worse thing you could do."

Given that a child is bereaved every 22 minutes in the UK, it’s unsurprising that local authorities up and down the country have expressed an interest in the South Lanarkshire service.