Hope House is named after baby Hope who died in Birmingham Children’s Hospital aged just ten months.

Hope was Caroline and Roger Peachey’s third child. Their second child, Fiona, had also died only a few short years earlier but with Hope the family had the support of Acorns Children’s Hospice in Birmingham.

Caroline had been instrumental in setting up the Shrewsbury Opportunity Group, a play scheme for able bodied and disabled children. It was through this group that the first meeting to look at creating a children’s hospice for Shropshire was held at the county’s Shirehall in May 1990.

On March 4^th 1991 the charity that was to become Hope House Children’s Hospice was formed. An incredible fundraising campaign was launched to raise the £1.5 million needed to build a hospice at Morda, near Oswestry. It seemed like the whole of the area was holding coffee mornings, bring and buy sales and sponsored events for Hope House!

Building started in 1993 and when Hope House opened its doors in October 1995 we were only the tenth children’s hospice in the world.

In our first full year after opening we supported 80 families. In 2018 we cared for 400 children at the hospices with 900 families receiving support at home or counselling and bereavement support.

Here are a few more landmarks as our services have developed…

In 1998 our Community Team was set up to provide emergency nursing and terminal care for children at home.

In 2003 our first Family Counsellor was appointed to provide counselling and bereavement support to the families of children using Hope House’s services.

In 2004 we opened our second hospice, Tŷ Gobaith, just outside Conwy in North Wales. It is more convenient for families from North Wales, and also sensitive to the needs of the local population, many of whom speak Welsh as a first language.

In 2008 we increased our upper age limit from 19 to 25 years. We did this because medical developments were helping some young people with life-threatening conditions to live longer lives.

In 2011 we opened the Sunstone Counselling Centre at Hope House because of growing demand for our services. We started offering our specialist bereavement support to all local families whose child had died in any circumstance.

In 2014 our first Neonatal Link Nurse was appointed to work with neonatal units across the region providing help and support to women and their families when their baby was diagnosed with a life-threatening condition during pregnancy or at birth. 

In 2017 we moved our Tŷ Gobaith counselling service to a self-contained building in Conwy called Conwy Court, making it easier for families in North Wales to access our specialist counselling services.

So that is our history in a nutshell! Please be a part of our future and enable us to be here for every child and family in the area who needs our help by making a donation today.

Donate