Background As a hospice we recognise that grief is an inevitable part of everyday life, regardless of gender, and can be one of the great isolating forces in life. In line with the Bereavement Care Service Standards (2014) we regularly review our activity to ensure development is in line with emerging needs. Hospice staff noticed that the number of bereaved women who come forward for care and support from us far outnumber men and we wanted to find a new way to reach out to the ‘missing men’, including bereaved husbands, men caring for their partner and men coming to terms with their own life- shortening illness.

In December 2017 we made a successful application to the Masonic Charitable Foundation Hospice Bereavement Care programme. This application shared our hope to develop a ‘Make, Do and Mend ‘workshop. Our aim was to reach out to the ‘missing men’ recognising that one size doesn’t fit all.

Aims Our project aims to set up a ‘Make, Do and Mend’ workshop within our retail warehouse, reaching out to bereaved men and women, those caring for their partner or living with their own life-shortening illness. Workshop participants will work alongside each other on a variety of projects and the essence of the group is not building, but the connections, relationships and support between members. The workshop will be led by an experienced retail manager and bereavement staff, and will take place in a fully equipped DIY workshop environment. The workshops will run throughout the year on Wednesday and Saturday mornings and participants will be invited to attend eight sessions. Through use of the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale (WEMWBS) tool we will seek evidence of an improvement in participants’ reported wellbeing at the end of the eight- week programme.