Forever Stars

26/02/26-Forever Stars – Julie Oldwill

Forever Stars was set up in 2014 by Michelle and Richard Daniels, when they lost their daughter Emily as a still birth. They felt that the facilities and resources to support bereaved families needed additional funding in order to help families come to terms with their loss. So Forever Stars was established to help with those who had suffered miscarriage, still birth and other Neo natal issues, raising £100k in their first year and £920k since their launch.

Julie also suffered the similar fate when they lost their daughter Alexandra in 2016, she has since become an enthusiastic volunteer, then trustee. 15 babies/day are lost, nationally, but there is little money from the NHS for improving support.  Forever Stars have built two Serenity suites (QMC June 2016 and The City in 2017) 70 families /month use them. They offer counselling to relatives with “Talking through the Tears”. They do BLAW (Baby Loss Awareness Week) October 9^th to 15^th; They have refurbished the A23 rooms, non-clinical, unlimited time, self-contained and used for ‘naming ceremonies’.  At the Highfield’s garden, they currently have almost 1000 babies remembered.

In 2025, they supported 1200 families; provided 150 hours of Play therapy; 12 volunteer days with 2200 volunteer hours (for which they received the Keys Award for Voluntary Service).

Their challenge is to break the taboo of talking about ‘baby loss’, reduce the feelings of isolation and generally improve facilities.  For 2026 they are launching a ‘decade of Serenity’, aiming to raise £50k, working with NUH to provide support for siblings. Several questions followed regarding training to get qualified counsellors.

Stan offered a Vote of Thanks saying that although they only started in recent years, they seem to be very well established and wondered how the UK’s baby loss figures compared to other European countries. He remembers Highfield well; having spent many happy hours there as a youngster and glad to see that it is being re-used. He concluded that talking about the losses has to be good and asked members to join him in a warm round of applause.  

A £200 cheque was donated by President Gail to Julie for Forever Stars                            AR