The Larch Project is an initiative which connects schoolchildren with hospice patients through storytelling, creativity and shared experiences.
We aim to open-up discussions around death, dying, bereavement, disability, and living with progressive illness in a supportive and creative way.
By linking school children with hospice patients where they work together on a shared creative project, we hope to dispel myths, and provide young people with information to prepare them for their own life experiences.
Each project runs over four separate afternoons, with the final session being a celebration party event where creative projects produced are showcased to family, school staff, hospice employees and volunteers. This project forms part of our Compassionate Community offering.
The project is funded by the National Lottery Community Fund.
The Larch project is available to schools in the Ipswich and East Suffolk area, and within Great Yarmouth and Waveney. It is offered to children between 10 and 13 years old in Years 5, 6, 7 and 8.
If your primary or secondary school would like to take part in the Larch Project, we would love to hear from you.
In 2025, we collaborated with Cedarwood Primary School, connecting pupils with patients receiving care at St Elizabeth Hospice.
Watch the video below, produced by the Suffolk Music Therapy Service, which gives a glimpse into the work achieved for the project, how the pupils felt taking part and Headteacher Tina Shute’s feedback on the project:
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