M ENTION the word "hospice" and most people will automatically associate the word with death.

According to Fran Shortridge, however, who works as a child and family counsellor at North Devon Hospice, the work she does is not just about death.

Fran's therapy touches the lives of children, the family unit, and not just the people who are diagnosed with a life-threatening illness.

Fran brings her own life's experiences as well as her professional training to her role and believes everyone she works with has individual emotional needs and her work takes various approaches to suit the individual's needs.

From an early age Fran found her own emotional coping mechanisms and believes this has helped her to become more empathic in her approach to her hospice work.

Fran was bright enough to pass her 11+ exam at ten and started grammar school in Staffordshire just before her 11th birthday, but on reflection, she thinks she was too young to cope emotionally and as a result had a "dreary" time and didn't feel she really fitted in until she reached 6th form when she was at Edgehill College (now Kingsley School), Bideford.

Fran did her best to "fit in" at school, helped her mum to bring up her new baby brother Alex as well as helping out on their farm at Langtree.

Later in life when cracks started to appear in Fran's marriage she accompanied her dad to The Plough Arts Centre and starting attending the first Thursday Writing Group, which had guest appearances from published authors and poets.

One evening while listening to the author Helen Dunmore read some poetry Fran suddenly thought, "I could do that".

She went home that evening and wrote her first poem, which she describes as "an emotional life saver". Fran continued to write a poem every day for several months writing about the emotional journey she was coping with. She eventually got the confidence to read them aloud to the First Thursday group, and was delighted with the positive feedback she received.

Fran continued to write when her marriage eventually broke down and she was left to bring up her young daughter Charlotte single-handedly.

To supplement her income Fran got herself a job at Langtree School working with a young girl who required daily physical and emotional support, a role that became much more than a job as their friendship developed and they built up a strong bond during the seven years they were together. Fran started to realise that some of the children in the class enjoyed talking her about any number of things ranging from why they were sad that day to why they did not want to eat their lunch and she enjoyed the interaction with them and finding ways in which to help them.

This led her to start training as a school counsellor. Fran used what she called "helpful listening" with a young girl whose mum was diagnosed as terminally ill. The girl she was supporting had a younger sibling who was receiving help from Mandy Redgrove, one of North Devon Hospice's therapists.

When Mandy came to the School and met Fran she suggested that Fran might benefit from supervision support to help her with the work she was doing at school and suggested she come to the hospice as a bereavement volunteer where she would receive supervisory support.

Fran enjoyed the training as a bereavement counsellor and enjoyed her time at the hospice. When a new position arose, at the hospice for a part-time position, working with the emotional support team, Fran applied for the job. Following a successful application, she joined the hospice five years ago. During the five years Fran has worked at the hospice she has worked in schools and homes with young people from the age of three upwards but only after she gets consent from parents.

"I usually get referrals from the hospice's community nursing team or the hospice's bedded unit and in the first instance I always talk to the parents of the child to assess their needs," said Fran.

She often finds that someone who is terminally ill finds it difficult to express their thoughts and fears to their children and sometimes this is because they have not accepted they are dying or simply want to avoid hurting their children and Fran is always sensitive to their feelings.

"I believe it is very important for people to have an opportunity to say their goodbyes and to be involved in the process of their loved one's final stages of life.

"Children react in different ways, some will just want to watch TV when they are given sad news while others might want to get involved in the process of helping with funeral arrangements but whatever way they react or decisions they take my job is to support them," said Fran.

Fran finds for many of the children creative play is very much part of the bereavement and healing process and Fran has her own "play backpack" which she uses as a tool kit to enable children to express themselves.

"In play children can re-create events and exercise power over them. With the therapeutic attention of an adult, they may come to understand more about themselves and their world," she said.

"The perplexity for the counsellor is that they themselves may never know what the child's play is about, for their role is to provide the safe, attentive space in which children can work things out for themselves."

At 54, Fran is still learning new skills to help her in her work. She is in her final year of a four-year Gestalt therapy training programme and believes the training she has undertaken has been invaluable in equipping her with the tools she needs to help children though difficult emotional periods in their life.

She explained: "Gestalt therapy is an existential and experiential psychotherapy that focuses on the individual's experience in the present moment."

Fran finds that children respond to this type of therapy because it is their individual experience she focuses on and deals with a present moment in their life.

Fran rarely writes poetry these days about her own emotions and that may well be that she uses all her creative energies to support the children she works with through their own emotional journeys.

Fran is every much aware of the "space" that Death leaves behind and her poem So There Is Death evaluates the space it leaves and her job as a family therapist for North Devon Hospices helps create a "space" for children to deal with the emotional turmoil they have to deal with.

So There is Death

like a tree ageing

losing its vigour over a long stretch of time

or

being torn out at the roots

by an unexpected hurricane

either way

there is a space

left by its leaving

a space which is both empty

and full almost beyond bearing

a space

torn by the

bleak desolation of loneliness and loss

burned by the

harsh flames of anger

kissed by the

remembrance of loving and ecstasy

and of being together

and sometimes

almost crushed

by the unspeakable shame of relief

all these things lie waiting to be

uncovered spoken acknowledged

and heard

heard without question or judgement

heard and accepted

and only then

is the space re-made

mended and embroidered

with a different pattern

and somewhere within that pattern

there will be a tree still standing