Statement regarding closure of Luna Foundation
Luna Foundation CIC, the social enterprise focused on improving support for children and young people impacted by parental suicide, has announced on Tuesday 26 November 2024, that the organisation will cease to operate in the coming weeks. The reason for our closure is the ongoing financial challenges we’ve faced obtaining funding and commissioned work.
At our latest board meeting, we made the difficult but necessary decision to plan for an orderly closure having recognised that we have got as far as we are able to in the current economic climate.
Since Luna’s inception in March 2022, we have achieved a great deal including:
- 724 professionals trained to better support children after suicide in 10 local authorities and Gibraltar
- 227 Luna Ambassadors signed up committed to improving support for children bereaved by suicide
- 100 percent of participants reported feeling better equipped and more confident to support children after suicide
- 67 education settings attended webinar developed support adoption of Luna’s Suicide Bereavement Policy
- 16 Luna Lived Experience Network members engaged to shape and support our work
- 5 Luna Suicide Bereavement Guides produced
We want to express our deep gratitude to our valued partners, funders and supporters who have enabled us to shine a light on the needs of children impacted by parental suicide, to all the local authorities that entrusted us to train the people working with children and young people in their areas, to our Luna Lived Experience Network members for their courage in sharing their stories and all their valuable input, to our volunteer board members and the Luna Team. Without this incredible groundswell of support, we would never have achieved everything that we have managed to in our relatively short lifespan.
Our focus is now on celebrating Luna’s impact and leaving a positive legacy for our work and, subject to securing funding, we hope to publish a White Paper before we log off for a final time.
Message from Anna Wardley, founder and CEO of Luna Foundation:
‘Although this is an ending I never wished to see, I’m incredibly proud of the work we’ve done at Luna over the past three years to improve support for children after parental suicide.
I will remain forever grateful to The Churchill Fellowship who entrusted me to carry out the international research into improving support for children after parental suicide, out of which Luna was born.
We’ll never know quite how many lives Luna’s work will touch, but I suspect it’ll be far more than I could have ever imagined and one day I will be able to reflect on all that we have achieved together.
I want to express my deep gratitude to everybody who has supported Luna Foundation as, despite our imminent closure, we’ve started the important work of improving support for children and young people bereaved by parental suicide.
We’ve brought suicide bereaved children out of the shadows and given them a voice, and I’m sure Luna’s light will shine on.’