'You never get over the loss of your child and families need to know there is long term support in place for to help them through the grieving process.'

The ability to support all family members, including bereaved children, is vital. It's so important to recognise too, as 2 Wish does, that the need for support extends to staff members working with families, many of whom struggle with distress and trauma after being there at such a devastating time for families.

I was very pleased in September, on World Suicide Prevention Day, to visit the 2 Wish headquarters in Llantrisant to discuss their pilot suicide bereavement project in Gwent, one of three suicide bereavement pilots in Wales. As some Members here know already, suicide prevention, and especially the prevention of young suicide, is particularly close to my heart. We know that those bereaved by suicide have a much higher risk of dying by suicide, so suicide bereavement support is a key priority for me. Suicide bereavement support is suicide prevention and saves lives. 2 Wish have worked closely with Gwent Police to offer immediate support to anyone bereaved by suicide in Gwent, and that is in addition to their cross-Wales work supporting families who've lost a young person to suicide. So, I'd like to place on record my thanks to 2 Wish and Gwent Police for their vital work in this area.

I want everyone in Wales who has been bereaved to know that help is there for them. With that in mind, last Thursday, I was pleased to announce the launch of the national framework for the delivery of bereavement care in Wales. I commend this framework to Members. It sets out our vision for a compassionate Wales where everyone has access to high-quality bereavement care and support to meet their needs effectively when they need it. I am grateful to the wide range of statutory and voluntary partners who are involved in its development, including those who have experienced bereavement themselves.

The draft framework was subject to an eight-week consultation earlier this year, and some respondents outlined their personal experiences of bereavement in general and bereavement during the pandemic. I would like to thank all respondents for sharing their experiences with us in order to help others. The framework places responsibilities on health boards in terms of commissioning bereavement care to meet the needs of their population. In particular, it sets out the requirements for the establishment of baseline standards and describes how the Welsh Government will monitor these standards, with commissioners being asked to report on their performance at regular intervals.

Turning now to the specific ask within the petition we are considering today, I fully recognise the need for a consistent, clear, immediate referral pathway to be available for families who lose a child or young person wherever they are in Wales. I am committed, as Deputy Minister, to ensuring that we in Wales deliver just that. I therefore commit to work with Rhian, her organisation and others on the national steering group to put in place a standard that focuses specifically on the provision of such support. Rhian and other members of the group's experience will be vital in helping us shape this standard so that it is robust enough to capture whether health boards are proactively offering that support in a consistent way across Wales. I also give the Senedd my commitment today that, as Minister, I will drive this work forward with real urgency and pace. I hope that Rhian, who I worked with on the petition before coming into Government, knows me well enough to know that I will be good to my word on this.

To support the new bereavement framework, we will also be making an additional £420,000 available to health boards in 2022-23 and 2023-24 to help with bereavement co-ordination and implementation of the bereavement standards. We will monitor the implementation of the standards through the Welsh Government's performance management framework, and will challenge those health boards where it is apparent they are not meeting the standards. Clearly, we have to demonstrate that organisations offering support are valued and resourced, and alongside the framework, I announced a £1 million bereavement support grant for our third sector partners for the next three years. I have asked that the criteria for this grant encourage bids from those organisations that are able to offer the immediate support that the petition is calling for. This investment will help to extend and deepen that support across Wales, and help fill those gaps that exist in the current provision.

Supporting those members of our community who are bereaved is in many ways a responsibility for all of us, and I'd like to pay tribute to all of those involved in the care and support of all bereaved people in Wales. I also want to assure you that the Welsh Government is committed to ensuring that anyone in Wales who needs it has access to high-quality bereavement care and support. I'd like to close today by thanking again the Petitions Committee for bringing forward this debate and by giving my heartfelt thanks to Rhian and to 2 Wish for all that they continue to do to support families who face the unthinkable loss of losing a child or young person in their lives. Diolch yn fawr.