BEREAVEMENT counsellors believe a hospice extension will help them reach out to the most vulnerable victims of terminal illness -the children who are left behind.

The bereavement team at St Cuthbert's Hospice say the opening of a ten-bed unit later this year will allow them to help the children struggling to cope with the loss of their parents.

The hospice, which operates only as a daycare centre, desperately wants to offer round-the-clock care to terminally ill patients.

Last year, it launched a fundraising campaign, backed by The Northern Echo, to build a £3.2m in-patient unit and is now rapidly closing in on its target,

Social worker Christine Knowles leads the ten staff and volunteers who help those trying to come to terms with the loss of a loved one. She believes an in-patient unit would help her team build up the necessary trust to be able to help children in their darkest hour.

She said: "We already deal with a number of people who are in their 30s or 40s and have children, but the service we can offer to children is limited because we do not have an in-patient unit.

"Children can be quite suspicious, they will not trust just anyone, particularly at that time because they are vulnerable.

"Once we reach the stage where the parent is coming in for in-patient care and eventually dies here, we will be able to build up a long-term relationship with the children and be in the privileged position of having established that trust."

At present, the bereavement team contact relatives within days of a death, then follow up with repeat visits or phone calls to help people.

They also organise outreach work in the community and stage regular celebrations of life in the Durham City hospice.

Ms Knowles said: "There is a process of grieving, there is a shock phase, an angry phase and there is the lowest point of despair and hopelessness before, hopefully, most people can work through their grief.

"They need to talk freely, get angry safely, and often the easiest place for that is away from members of the family."

The team's workload is expected to grow significantly in coming months, as the opening of the extension looks after more surviving family members who need counselling.

Ms Knowles hopes to recruit more volunteers and is also looking to create more support groups to run alongside the successful men's group.

She said: "It is really important to deal with grief rather than bottle it up -its does not go away.

"It is about people allowing themselves to try to move through the pain of that experience to find some sort of future.