Features / Bristol Charity Advent Calendar 2025
Bristol Charity Advent Calendar 2025, day 10: Jessie May
The Jessie May Trust is a charity working to provide at-home hospice care for children and young people suffering from life-limiting and life-threatening conditions.
For almost 30 years, the organisation has provided specialist nursing care, as well as emotionally supporting parents, siblings and extended families units across Bristol and the South West.
Jessie May advocates for children with serious illnesses to still be able to experience childhood, alongside helping to secure vital family memories during vulnerable times.
Jessie May’s nurses work on building long-term trusting bonds with the children they work with
The mission is to make end-of-life and palliative care as simple as it can be, taking stress away from families in any way possible to ensure they can function and process.
The trust, formed in 1996, works to recentre the home in childhood hospice care, saying that “home is where families feel safest”, and “no family should face such heartache without the right support.”
Developing strong relationships with the children they care for, the nurses at Jessie May are also encouraged to be advocates in medical and clinical settings, ensuring that their voices and needs are always prioritised.
View this post on Instagram
The team at Jessie May said: “At Jessie May, we are here to offer a listening ear, a supportive hand, and a community that remembers.
“We hold space for grief – not to fix it, but to share it.
“Because grief never goes away, but with care, compassion and togetherness, it becomes a little more bearable.
For more information about Jessie May, visit jessiemay.org.uk.
All photos: Jessie May
Read next:
Our newsletters emailed directly to you
