On behalf of the many grieving parents, grandparents, and siblings in the Northeast Arkansas chapter of The Compassionate Friends, please accept our extended condolences for your loss. Grief is a journey that is eased when we share it with those whom best understand our pain, anger, and sadness.
The Compassionate Friends of Northeast Arkansas is an organization that helps to support the core of the family, (parents, grandparents, and siblings) when a child, of any age and for any reason, passes away. Support comes through the sharing of our unique feelings or just the emotionally safe place that is offered at our monthly meetings.
Support and help is available at all times. Please do not hesitate in contacting our facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/tcfofnea/
or through the contact page on this website. For additional information, please visit the newsletter page and stroll through the gallery. We are a small chapter with incredibly big hearts.
Mission
When a child dies, at any age, the family suffers intense pain and may feel hopeless and isolated. The Compassionate Friends provides highly personal comfort, hope, and support to every family experiencing the death of a son or a daughter, a brother or a sister, or a grandchild, and helps others better assist the grieving family (adopted 2-25-2012). Read More
Vision
The vision statement of The Compassionate Friends is that everyone who needs us will find us and everyone; who finds us will be helped.
Seven Principles
The Compassionate Friends was established based upon seven principles. The principles are reviewed and minor wording changes have been made from time to time, but they continue to stand the test of time.
- TCF offers friendship, understanding, and hope to bereaved parents, siblings and grandparents.
- TCF believes that bereaved parents, siblings, and grandparents can help each other toward a positive resolution of grief.
- TCF reaches out across society's barriers to all bereaved parents, siblings, and grandparents.
- TCF understands that every member has individual needs and rights.
- TCF reaches out to the bereaved primarily through our community of local chapters and secondarily by
website, social media, and conferences. - TCF chapters belong to their members.
- TCF is coordinated nationally in its support to its chapters, bereaved parents, siblings, and grandparents.
The Compassionate Friends Credo
We need not walk alone. We are The Compassionate Friends. We reach out to each other with love, with understanding, and with hope. The children we mourn have died at all ages and from many different causes, but our love for them unites us. Your pain becomes my pain, just as your hope becomes my hope. We come together from all walks of life, from many different circumstances. We are a unique family because we represent many races, creeds, and relationships. We are young, and we are old. Some of us are far along in our grief, but others still feel a grief so fresh and so intensely painful that they feel helpless and see no hope. Some of us have found our faith to be a source of strength, while some of us are struggling to find answers. Some of us are angry, filled with guilt or in deep depression, while others radiate an inner peace. But whatever pain we bring to this gathering of The Compassionate Friends, it is pain we will share, just as we share with each other our love for the children who have died. We are all seeking and struggling to build a future for ourselves, but we are committed to building a future together. We reach out to each other in love to share the pain as well as the joy, share the anger as well as the peace, share the faith as well as the doubts, and help each other to grieve as well as to grow. We Need Not Walk Alone. We Are The Compassionate Friends.
©2007 The Compassionate Friends
Siblings Walking Together (formerly The Sibling Credo)
We are the surviving siblings of The Compassionate Friends.
We are brought together by the deaths of our brothers and sisters.
Open your hearts to us, but have patience with us.
Sometimes we will need the support of our friends.
At other times we need our families to be there.
Sometimes we must walk alone, taking our memories with us,
continuing to become the individuals we want to be.
We cannot be our dead brother or sister;
however, a special part of them lives on with us.
When our brothers and sisters died, our lives changed.
We are living a life very different from what we envisioned,
and we feel the responsibility to be strong even when we feel weak.
Yet we can go on because we understand better than many others
the value of family and the precious gift of life.
Our goal is not to be the forgotten mourners that we sometimes are,
but to walk together to face our tomorrows as surviving siblings of The Compassionate Friends.
©The Compassionate Friends
We need not walk alone. We are The Compassionate Friends. We reach out to each other with love, with understanding, and with hope. The children we mourn have died at all ages and from many different causes, but our love for them unites us. Your pain becomes my pain, just as your hope becomes my hope. We come together from all walks of life, from many different circumstances. We are a unique family because we represent many races, creeds, and relationships. We are young, and we are old. Some of us are far along in our grief, but others still feel a grief so fresh and so intensely painful that they feel helpless and see no hope. Some of us have found our faith to be a source of strength, while some of us are struggling to find answers. Some of us are angry, filled with guilt or in deep depression, while others radiate an inner peace. But whatever pain we bring to this gathering of The Compassionate Friends, it is pain we will share, just as we share with each other our love for the children who have died. We are all seeking and struggling to build a future for ourselves, but we are committed to building a future together. We reach out to each other in love to share the pain as well as the joy, share the anger as well as the peace, share the faith as well as the doubts, and help each other to grieve as well as to grow. We Need Not Walk Alone. We Are The Compassionate Friends.
©2007 The Compassionate Friends
Siblings Walking Together (formerly The Sibling Credo)
We are the surviving siblings of The Compassionate Friends.
We are brought together by the deaths of our brothers and sisters.
Open your hearts to us, but have patience with us.
Sometimes we will need the support of our friends.
At other times we need our families to be there.
Sometimes we must walk alone, taking our memories with us,
continuing to become the individuals we want to be.
We cannot be our dead brother or sister;
however, a special part of them lives on with us.
When our brothers and sisters died, our lives changed.
We are living a life very different from what we envisioned,
and we feel the responsibility to be strong even when we feel weak.
Yet we can go on because we understand better than many others
the value of family and the precious gift of life.
Our goal is not to be the forgotten mourners that we sometimes are,
but to walk together to face our tomorrows as surviving siblings of The Compassionate Friends.
©The Compassionate Friends