CHESTNUT TREE HOUSE
Chestnut Tree House is the children’s hospice for Sussex and South East Hampshire and provides care for around 300 children and young people with life-limiting and life-threatening conditions every year. Thanks to support from the local community, children and families who know they don’t have long together have the chance to live life to the full and say goodbye in the way that is right for them.
On a visit to Chestnut Tree House, kids can be astronauts for the day in the multi-sensory room, discover creepy crawlies on a woodland walk, or form their very own pop group in the music room. It is a place where parents can just be parents, and not carers, and where siblings have people to talk to who understand what they are going through.
As well as care provided at the House, nurses visit families at home, taking children out to explore their local community, or simply giving tired families and carers the chance to take a well-earned break.
Then, when the time comes, they help families say goodbye, in whatever way feels right for them, at home or in the hospice itself. They also offer ongoing bereavement support for the whole family.
It is thanks to the generosity of the local community who make this happen. Over £4 million is needed every year to provide hospice care for local children and their families. Very little of this comes from central government. The rest comes from the donations received, fundraising, gifts in wills, shops, the Chestnut Tree House lottery, and volunteering.
Find out more