Name: Every Life Counts
Organisation: Every Life Counts
Award Category: UK Support Organisation
Sponsored By:
Voting is now closed
My Plea:
We are so honoured to be shortlisted for best support organisation, this is a bit about what we do and some feedback from our beautiful families,
Every Life Counts provides parents who have received a life-limiting diagnosis for their unborn baby with the vital support they need to let love shine through.
We were created out of a need to help families who find themselves in a situation where their baby may not live for long after birth. Our desire is that families can have a network where they can feel supported and loved and informed as they say hello and goodbye to their beautiful baby.
“At the darkest point in my life, Every Life Counts enabled me to see the light by helping me come to terms with the life-limiting diagnosis of my daughter Freya who had anencephaly. Because of that I was able to love and care for her just the way I should have. Freya and I will be forever grateful for the support we have received from Every Life Counts, and more importantly for the forever-friends we have made on our journey together. Erin O’Hara, mum to Freya
Because we have walked this journey ourselves, we know how frightening and alone parents can feel. We also learned what parents most need.
Our particular focus is to:
Provide Support – especially in the form of a peer-to-peer support network where families can be talk and meet with other parents who have been given the same diagnosis for their baby. Mums and Dads say this is invaluable and is critically important in enabling parents to find the strength and the right path to make the most of their time with baby, before and after birth.
Sometimes families need to talk and share, sometimes they need help getting counselling, sometimes mum is on her own and needs someone to go to hospital to be a support for appointments or after baby is born. We can give referrals to community resources, where available. We help parents create a birth plan, offering suggestions from experience that will help Mum and Dad express their wishes for care for both mother and baby. We also provide anticipatory grief support, since loss and grief is an inescapable part of this journey.
We send out care packages to mum before the birth of her baby. Each care package is unique to mum, and the memory boxes, tiny booties and more are packed with love for both mum and baby. Our medically accurate and beautifully presented booklets help to inform and reassure parents who were all too often simply told to ‘go home and google’ for information after their baby was diagnosed.
Every Life Counts also provides a website forum for parents of children who were diagnosed with a terminal condition to share their memories, their joy, their pain, and their love. Parents says that sharing their stories through individual, personalised web pages, means they feel their baby’s life was valued and recognised, and they also feel they are helping others who may be in the same position.
“If it wasn’t for ELC I would have been lost, they were essential to my healing. I am truly grateful for their help and support on this hard and lonely journey.” Gemma Coiley, mum to Brendan who had Potter’s Syndrome.
“When I lost my baby boy Troy back in January 2019, Vicky from ELC reached out to me. She gave me great advice, she comforted me and still to this day contacts me to see how I’m doing. This is what any bereaved parent needs ‘someone to talk to’, and ELC is perfect for this. They have been there for me every step of the way. Thank you.” Lauren Kay-McDowell
Work with Health Services
We work with healthcare providers, acting as a liaison and a conduit parents and medical and healthcare professionals, to ensure the experiences of parents are shared and co-operation is achieved with the aim of improving services for families.
Every Life Counts was pleased to work with the Irish national health service to improve bereavement care, and we continue to participate in consultations to ensure parents and babies are supported and valued. This can be a heartbreaking time for parents and medics want to know how to best help families. Together we can make the pain easier, and ensure families have time to love and make memories.
We hosted some of the world’s leading experts in caring for very sick babies and their families for the first Perinatal Care conference in Dublin in 2016 and are planning a similar event in 2020. Attended by doctors, nurses and midwives, the conference heard from experts in Perinatal Hospice Care, the Management and Treatment of complex conditions for baby including surgery for baby in the womb, and Best Care when dealing with loss. The conference also heard from families who had lost their babies to these conditions, a shared experience that all attendees greatly valued.
We also produce fully-researched, accurate and crucially important information in booklet form, and on our website. We have provided maternity hospitals with these booklets, and the feedback from staff in the hospitals has very positive.
“I wish to extend my sincere gratitude for all the wonderful information that you sent. We will be eternally grateful for all your support. The Maternity Bereavement study day was a huge success and very positively received.” End of Life Care Coordinator, Sligo Hospital.
Provide Information and Increase Awareness
Every Life Counts works with mainstream and social media to increase awareness about life-limiting conditions, such as anencephaly and Trisomy 18.
Our videos sharing the experiences of parents have received millions of views and have helped many families to feel their baby’s life was valued and recognised.
ELC have appeared on many national and local TV and radio programmes and our families’ stories have been widely published and shared. Our mission in regard to increasing awareness is to ensure that more and more people understand the needs of our families and that they also understand that our babies are precious and loved, and that every life counts.
“Hi, I saw your beautiful video on Every Life Counts. I would just like to say thank-you. I am 28 weeks pregnant with a little boy who was diagnosed with Trisomy 18, and this was the best thing I could have seen right now.” Síofra
Vicky from ELC rang me after I contacted her after I got my sons anencephaly diagnosis. I couldn’t speak with the lump in my throat!! But she knew that anyway, so I didn’t have to say a word. She made me feel a little more relaxed & after everything happened, I understood. She kept InTouch & was there when I needed her….and 9 months on she is still there. I got the most beautiful locket for Rossa’s memory totally unexpected but truly appreciated. ELC does an amazing job for us parents that’s facing the biggest struggle of their lives. I’ve made a friend who I feel I can talk to about anything (even though we have never met) I don’t know where I would be without ELC. True angels do exist on this earth. Thank you Every Life Counts. If anyone deserves an award for their hard work & emotional presence, it’s ELC. Just amazing! Xx
Rose Foley Mum to Baby Rossa
Here is a video of one of our little angel days we hold for bereaved parents
Thank you for your time in reading about our organisation and watching our video and good luck to everyone nominated you are all amazing people.
What Others Have Said
Right now, we appreciate Every Life Counts, a charity in Dublin dedicated to providing desperate families with much needed perinatal hospice care and support, who’ve not only just helped us along the way, but have actually played a huge role in our daughters story. People might not forget, but they don’t always remember. That’s where I’d like to highlight the support we received from Every Life Counts. They remember me. They remember my daughter. They remember my partner. And they remember us every, single, day. I can always count on a message from Every Life Counts, even if it just says “How are you today darling?”
This charity is absolutely amazing and they deserve this award 100%
Amazing work, amazing people, when it’s life or death to know our babies are loved x
Every Life Counts does tremendous work for parents and babies who want to treasure to the utmost their shared time and love, no matter how short that may be on this earth!
Amazing work by an amazing organisation ?
Showing true compassion & support for both women and their babies because life is not a choice, it is a gift & every life really does count ?
Every life counts says it all!
Fantastic organisation.The information they provide is second to none.The compassionate personal support they provide for families is outstanding.
Keep up the good work.
You are always in my thoughts and prayers.
Every life counts, keep up your great work.
Amazing work and a huge comfort to parents in a situation no one expects to find themselves in. 100% deserve this award.
ELC so deserve to have their work acknowledged. They provide a vital support to parents in the most traumatic period of their lives and do so through volunteerism and donations. They deserve this award 100 times over.
Every Life Counts deserves this award so much! They know no limits to help grieving families, they reach out to actually help everyone that go through the terrible loss of a baby. My best wishes for this beautiful and deepest gratitude for this organization!
Such a beautiful charity. So much love. ❤️
Every Life Counts
Every life counts is an amazing charity they do great work providing sick babies and their families with support and compassion when they need it most. God bless all involved in ELC
So heartwarming to read in this world we have today, where the prescious gift of life is so often reduced to just another disposable comidity
Amazing charity who helps parents love and care for babies with life-limiting illnesses.
Brilliant organisation
Amazing charity!
ELC are doing wonderful work for families. Beautiful charity
Very worthwhile organisation that deserves recognition.
What an amazing organisation ? Such a wonderful support to families in need so heartwarming
Amazing work by an amazing organisation
I found every life counts after my son Noah passed, i went to their day seminar and met other mums who had lost their babies. It helped so much to talk to people who knew exactly what pain i was going through. I wish i had known about them during my pregnancy, my Noah was diagnosed with hydrops fetalis and down syndrome and I would have been able to get so much more info during my pregnancy if i had known about them. They offer such much needed help and support at a time you never think will happen to you.
Wonderful to see this care and support at such a sad time in any parent’s life. Creating memories for the parents and wider family can only be beneficial to all those grieving in help them recover from their loss.
Amazing organisation
True support, one to one help, compassion and knowledge, for every step of the way and beyond….
Amazing charity that helps those in need of hope and support.
Solid advice & practical support in a sensitive way when it’s most needed. Thanks ELC
Excellent work
Great work
What an amazing organisation. Vicky is a wonderful woman providing love and support for families of babies with life limiting conditions ?
Amazing work
People who give their time selflessly like this need to be acknowledged. They make the world a better place.
Unbelievable how such a small charity can help so many people go through wat we have went through truly inspiring Vicky wall ????
Amazing work Vicky x
Well worthy of an award thanks to their great supportive work.
This organisation does fantastic work for family and has helped many family the support is unbelievable and many families couldn’t cope without the support this ladies gives .
Amazing work ❤
An organization built on unconditional love.
A wonderful organization with a huge heart.
Thanks for all the good work you do.
Well done ELC ?
Well done elc x
Great work
Having such a supportive organisation to turn to in times of need is most comforting for many who find themselves in difficult situations and dealing with difficult news.
It is very reassuring for people in difficulty to have this wonderful organisation to turn to for support and care with their pain.
We need services like this and people like this, we never know what lies ahead, at least have a light to shine on.
You deserve the award. Well done.
Amazing work, amazing charity and they deserve this award ❤️
I truly believe that Every life does count ….no matter how short that life is ….it is that baby’s life
A life affirming response to tragedy. Has helped so many families.
amazing organisation
All life is precious from conception to death. May all see the hand of God in creation
You deserve this award.
Full of praise for the great work you do.
Life matters
First time I have heard of the organisation but from reading the comments, I believe they deserve every commendations and recognition.
Vicky works effortlessly for every life counts and bereaved mam’s and dad’s always there for someone in need
Fantastic news and a great organisation but ELC is an Irish organisation and should be not in a section exclusively labelled UK!!!
Any organisation that takes the time and effort to meet the needs of families and children deserve all the blessings bestowed by God in their compassion and charity and therefore deserves our vote. Very well done to all involved and many blessings now and always.
Many have been helped and that speaks for itself.
What a blessing to have a Godly, sensitive heart. Keep up the good work every life counts…
This organisation is so essential!Every pregnant mother needs to know about it. I believe even young nulliparous women, should be made aware of it.Such knowledge means many more will choose life -even in life limiting circumstances.
If all women and men were informed about ELC, there would be far fewer pregnancies terminated on account of life limiting illnesses.Tell children along with the ‘facts of life’ in age appropriate terms,that this help is available for them.
Every Life Counts do brilliant work and should be applauded for it.
Every Life Counts do the most amazing work.
Every life is so precious to our world and God.
ELC is a truly wonderful organisation, which exudes love and care for families during some of their most difficult moments. Vicky is inspirational.
This organisation is wonderful. Provides a huge support to families.
An amazing organisation that provides love, care and support for mothers and their unborn babies. Protecting the most vulnerable of all in society.
Every life is precious no matter how short
a wonderful organisation providing great support to families.tess
God bless you all and the wonderful work you are doing especially Vicky
Every life Counts is a wonderful organisation and it’s deserves this award.Thank you
Wonderful organisation
Please Give them the award
Those who support life, support the basis on which all human rights depend. Reward them for they are the best friends anyone could have.