Our Founder’s Story

A letter from the founders

We didn’t set out to create a charity. 

Fresh Minds Education grew from our family’s experience of loss, love, and the long work of learning how to live again when life doesn’t unfold as expected. When our daughter Amber died, the world we knew changed forever. She was deeply loved, and her absence reshaped not just our lives, but how we understood ourselves, our relationships, and what it means to keep going. 

In the months and years that followed, we discovered that loss has a way of breaking through the masks people wear to cope. What we thought we could carry quietly became impossible to contain. And in that breaking open, something unexpected emerged – a second chance to live more honestly, and to begin healing in ways we hadn’t known were possible. 

As a family, we went on to experience further bereavements. Children close to us lost someone they loved, and as parents and carers we found ourselves searching for guidance that felt practical, compassionate, and real. Too often, we met long waiting lists, limited support, or approaches that didn’t reflect how grief actually shows up in everyday family life. We knew what it felt like to want help – and not to find it when it mattered most. 

Our professional backgrounds in youth work, drama, education, design, and technology shaped how we responded – helping us create work that is practical, human-led, and accessible. We believed – and still believe – that bereavement is not an illness to be fixed. Families hold deep inner wisdom, even when grief has shaken their confidence. What’s often needed is language, permission, and support to help children and the adults around them make sense of what’s happening inside and between them. 

Fresh Minds Education exists to support children and young people through grief by strengthening the adults around them – parents, carers, teachers, and trusted professionals. When adults feel more confident and less afraid of grief, children are better held, and families are supported to find their own way forward. 

We don’t believe in quick fixes or grand promises. We believe in small, careful acts of care. In relationship over replacement. In offering tools, spaces, and guidance that help people feel less alone – and more able to take the next step. 

This work carries our daughter’s name and our family’s story, but it is not about us. It is about the children and young people who continue to live with loss, and the adults who walk alongside them, doing their best in the midst of something they never chose. 

If you are here because you are worried about a child, supporting a family, or navigating grief yourself, we hope you find something that feels steady, respectful, and kind. 

Sometimes, all that’s needed is a glimmer of hope – and the reassurance that healing, in its own time and form, is possible. 

With care, 

The Founders