🌾 Holding Space After the Unthinkable: Why I Volunteer with the Road Victims Trust
Some events change everything.
There’s the moment before; and the life after.
The unthinkable happens. A life is lost. The silence is deafening.
The Road Victims Trust steps into that space with compassion, clarity, and care, and I am honoured to step in alongside them as a volunteer counsellor.
This work is not theoretical for me. Years ago, in 2012 I experienced my own sudden loss. My children were very young when their father died. There was no warning, no preparation, just shock and grief.
That grief cracked me open. It ignited the journey that led me to work in bereavement and ultimately to become the therapist that I am today. I know first-hand how life-shattering this kind of loss is. Volunteering my time with the Road Victims Trust is my way of giving back.
đź’” What the Road Victims Trust Offers
The Road Victims Trust provides free, specialist support to anyone affected by fatal road collisions across Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire, and Norfolk working both online, via telephone and face-to-face.
They support:
Bereaved families
Survivors of collisions
Witnesses and loved ones left behind
Serious injury
What they offer goes beyond counselling. It’s long-term, person-centred, deeply respectful support through some of life’s most destabilising events.
🕯️ Navigating Sudden Loss and Shock
Sudden death is a particular kind of trauma.
There is often no goodbye, no sense of closure; only a tidal wave of shock, fear, numbness, confusion, and often horrific imagery or memory.
The nervous system is on constant alert.
The mind can’t process what happened.
The heart is shattered.
At RVT, we create a gentle container for all of it. We allow space for grief in all its raw forms, without needing it to make sense, be tidy, or be “managed.”
⚖️ Inquests and the Legal Process
On top of the emotional trauma, there is often a complex legal process. For families, attending an inquest can feel like being dropped into an alien world of facts, timelines, and evidence; when what they’re really carrying is heartbreak.
RVT supports clients through this too, offering practical guidance and emotional steadiness at a time when everything else feels chaotic.
As counsellors, we’re there to hold, not fix. To walk beside, not lead. To be the calm presence in a storm that can feel unending.
🌱 Why This Work Matters So Deeply
Volunteering with the Road Victims Trust is an extension of everything I believe in as a therapist, a mother, and a woman who has lived grief.
It’s sacred work, and it’s work that often goes unseen.
But it’s in those quiet, tender spaces, when someone says, “I thought I was going mad…” or “I can’t breathe when I think about it…” that healing begins.
Sometimes, just being witnessed is enough.
Sometimes, that’s everything.
🤍 Final Words
If you, or someone you love has been affected by a road death, please know that gentle, non-judgemental support exists.
You can learn more or reach out to the Road Victims Trust here:
đź”— www.rvtrust.org.uk
And if you're a fellow professional drawn to meaningful, trauma-informed volunteering, I encourage you to consider joining this work. It’s tender. It’s essential. It changes lives.
Just as it changed mine.
