00:00Shan Travis Spencer didn't know where to turn after losing her best friend to suicide last year.
00:07I really didn't cope very well with it at all. I felt very isolated, very alone because Jess
00:14and my best friend, she, we were very much joint at the hip so it really kind of felt like
00:19I had
00:19lost a part of myself in losing her. Yeah, it really felt quite lonely and yeah I just didn't
00:28know where to go, who to turn to. She did try attending some groups set up for those who
00:34had lost loved ones to suicide. But Shan felt that none of the groups here in Kent really understood
00:40what it was like to go through this grief as a young person. That's when she discovered Too Young
00:46to Grieve, a community for young people going through loss set up by Luke Alfano after the
00:52deaths of his father and grandmother. Essentially the purpose is just to get people together,
00:57we're not therapy, we're not a support group, we're just literally a community of people who
01:02as we like to say get it and understand it and the idea is just to get you moving a
01:07little bit but also
01:08just to be able to connect with others who've been through a similar experience. There's no pressure
01:13to talk about anything about your grief, about your story, but if you do ever mention anything about it
01:19it's not looked at as awkward or weird, you can just share your story or share something about it or
01:25share a thought about grief and everyone around you sort of understands. According to Charity Let's
01:30Talk About Loss, more than three quarters of 18 to 35 year olds go through a bereavement and one third
01:38feel uncomfortable talking about it which can lead to feelings of isolation. This is what Luke hopes to
01:45tackle through too young to grieve. The community has groups across the country and after going to a
01:52couple of meetups in London, Shan decided to start her own group here in Kent. Young people I think tend
01:59to interact best with other people their own age and I feel like when we can form communities because of
02:08that it actually helps with the feeling of oh actually there are people that understand me, I'm actually
02:14not alone. So far the group has met in Maidstone but Shan is keen to expand it across the county
02:21so that no
02:22young person in Kent has to go through grief alone. Sophie Denny for KMTV in Maidstone.
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