Flourishing after loss made easier with mentors
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Grieving the loss of a child is so much harder in isolation. The Ladybird Care Foundation (LCF) is an organisation that offers support to bereaved parents in the difficult months after losing a child.
LCF’s Bereaved Parent Peer Mentoring Program connects newly bereaved parents with trained volunteer peer mentors who have also experienced the death of a child, at any age, from any cause. Peer mentors provide compassionate one-on-one support to bereaved parents in person and virtually for up to 18 months.
It costs approximately $800 to recruit, train, match and supervise each peer mentor. In 2023, the AMA Queensland Foundation committed to support the training of up to 25 peer mentors across Queensland, enabling the program to extend support to families living in rural and regional areas.
In 2025, Ladybird Care Foundation have reached a major milestone with 50 peer mentors now trained in how to provide care that goes beyond clinical support, 13 of whom have been funded by AMA Queensland Foundation to date.
This August, LCF hosted a Gala Dinner, and the team have provided an update to the Foundation about the event.
Pictured above: Ladybird Care Foundation Board and team
Ladybird Care Flourish Gala Dinner 2025
As Brisbane basked in an unseasonably warm winter’s day, the final touches were being added in the Grand Ballroom of Brisbane’s City Hall, ready to welcome more than 500 guests to the fifth annual Ladybird Care Foundation Gala Dinner.
The stage itself was transformed into a flourishing garden, with this year’s theme – Flourish - illuminated above a long table that lovingly held photos of children whose lives ended far too soon.
Pictured: Jelena wears handcrafted organza flowers for sale during the evening. Foreground shows images of children whose lives were lost too soon.
For every parent, the dream when a child is born is that they will flourish. For that hope to be shattered at any stage of life is an unimaginable sorrow. The Ladybird Care Foundation (LCF) exists to stand beside parents in this sorrow, to offer care, compassion, and community. Over time, LCF has itself blossomed into a flourishing organisation - one built on love, on remembrance, and on the commitment to walk alongside families through the hardest of journeys.
The evening opened with heartfelt words from Olympic champion Brooke Hanson, who spoke with deep authenticity as a bereaved parent herself. She was followed by Naomi Mason, who welcomed all with warmth and reflection:
“Tonight, alongside grief, there will be moments of joy. When you hear laughter, when you feel moved to dance, when joy touches your heart, welcome this flourishing. These moments don't diminish your love and loss - they honour both. Your children live on in your capacity for joy, in the love that continues to dance within you.
So tonight, remember: every seed needs both light and darkness to grow. And you can flourish - not despite your grief, but because of your love.”
Pictured: Guest speaker and Ladybird Care Foundation Ambassador Brooke Hanson.
Wendy Collins, General Manager of LCF, took to the stage to give heartfelt thanks to the evening’s sponsors and to share the Foundation’s growing vision. She reflected that love and grief are inseparable - two sides of the same precious coin - and paid warm tribute to the volunteer Peer Mentors of LCF. These mentors, having known both profound love and profound loss, walk alongside newly bereaved parents not to fix the unfixable, but to companion them, so no one must walk the path of grief alone.
After mains and raffle draws, the evening’s guest speaker, Ben Stuart, current mentee with LCF stepped onto the stage to introduce his wife Bonnie (also receiving support from a LCF Mentor) before she returned to her seat. With tender courage, he spoke of his son Ezekiel - a vibrant, compassionate 16-year-old whose life was cut heartbreakingly short, yet whose impact continues to ripple through countless lives. Ezekiel’s courage, his dream of returning to Uganda to serve others, and the love he left behind painted a picture of a life truly flourishing, even in its brevity.
Ben asked gently: “Is it possible to flourish after loss?” and pointed to the universe for answers: the sunrise after night, the rainbow after storm, the song of birds after stillness. “We have learnt,” he said, “to redeem the moments.”
The silence that followed was deep, sacred, and heavy with love. The standing ovation was not only for Ben’s words but for the love of all children carried in the hearts of those gathered.
Pictured: Guest speaker and mentee Ben Stuart with his wife Bonnie.
The Ladybird Gala Dinner is always a night of elegance, community, and generosity - but above all, it is a night of love. A love that remembers, a love that grieves, and a love that continues to flourish.
Extracts from the full article available on the Ladybird Care website, written by guest, Louisa Filius.
AMA Queensland Foundation congratulate the Ladybird Care team on this fantastic evening, which was also attended by Lana Elliot, appointed as an Observer to the AMA Queensland Foundation Board this year, under the Observership Program.