A grief counselling service is spending nearly $500,000 a year to cover operations, its founder revealed.

Gina Spence said that her charity assisted about 100 children from more than 35 families — all of whom were wrestling with grief, much of which stemmed from homicide.

Ms Spence said that it cost between $25,000 and $35,000 a month to run “every single day,” which included everything from specific therapy regimes to referrals to other professionals.

She added: “We have to have credentialled, qualified people to do the work. We raise funds from bake sales to tag days to special events.

“We apply for grants and do what most charities have to do.”

Ms Spence was speaking during a sitting of the Hamilton Rotary Club yesterday.

The Gina Spence Programme offers counselling sessions at $175 each and often gives six to eight sessions per client.

Ms Spence said her Champions programme, which assists children who have lost family to homicide, was a “wraparound service” that targeted all aspects of life and included school preparation, scholarship opportunities and even gifts during Christmas.

She added that the charity assisted those dealing with all forms of grief, though their focus was primarily on mourning the death of a loved one.

She admitted the programme was not covered by insurance, but added this was “something that we’re working on”.

Ms Spence said that her team also connected those in need to specialists.

She explained: “If our child needs a mentor, we just go across to Big Brothers and Big Sisters, because we don’t do mentorship.

“If our child needs a specific family dynamic, we go to the Family Centre. If that senior who’s now raising a child need help, we send him to Age Concern.

“Why? Because that’s not what we do — but it makes our programme extremely effective because we do grief.”

Ms Spence said GSP assisted those who were in mourning or dealing with divorce, joblessness and homelessness.

She explained that grief was not just connected to death, but any sort of traumatic loss.

Ms Spence said that much of the island went through a “national grief moment” during the Covid-19 pandemic when many liberties such as free movement or socialising in person were suddenly gone.

She said: “When Covid-19 struck this island, we grieved in many different ways, from the businessman who saw his bottom line drop, to the coach who could no longer connect with his students or teachers, to families who had to learn to live together for a minute and did not like each other.”

Ms Spence said that, although people often sought her services for the loss of loved ones, they often later recognised other traumas they were dealing with when unpacking their grief.

She explained: “A lot of times, people are not acknowledging their other problems. They’re so overwhelmed with that one loss — whether it be divorce, sickness or death — that they haven’t taken out time to acknowledge ‘my best friend died last year and I’m still not over that’.”

Ms Spence added: “We have made it OK to talk about it. Grief is not a sexy subject, but if you make it a conversation that people can have and you provide support, a safe place and show some good outcomes, people are going to come — and we’re seeing that.”