When Poppy’s Light Foundation was first imagined, it wasn’t born out of a strategic plan or a funding application.
It was born out of love, heartbreak, and a profound sense that what our family experienced should never be faced alone.
Like so many families navigating a cardiac diagnosis, we encountered moments of fear, uncertainty, and isolation that went far beyond the clinical. The medical support was vital, but it was never the whole picture. The emotional toll, the psychological strain, and the quiet, invisible burden carried by parents, siblings, and young people themselves were often left unspoken and unsupported.
Poppy’s Light Foundation exists because of that gap. It exists because no family should feel abandoned at the point where their world changes forever. And it exists because, even in the depths of loss, there can be purpose, connection, and light.
Less than a year on from registering as a charity, I find myself reflecting with immense pride, and a deep sense of responsibility, on what has already been achieved, and what now lies ahead.
From Personal Loss to Collective Purpose
Registering Poppy’s Light Foundation as a charity on 20 February 2025, during Heart Month, felt profoundly symbolic. It marked not only the formal beginning of the organisation, but a commitment to transform grief into action, and to do so with integrity, compassion, and care.
In our first year, the growth of the charity has been both humbling and extraordinary. What began as a personal mission quickly became a shared one, embraced by clinicians, families, donors, volunteers, and supporters across the North East and beyond.
Together, we have:
- Funded specialist psychological support for families at some of their most vulnerable moments
- Enhanced hospital environments to make clinical spaces more humane and child-centred
- Supported clinical teams delivering complex cardiac care
- Created moments of joy, normality, and connection for children living with heart conditions
- Raised over £150,000 through community-led fundraising and trust-based giving
- Built strong governance foundations, ensuring transparency, accountability, and credibility
Most importantly, we have earned trust, from families who allow us into their lives at deeply sensitive moments, from clinicians who see the value of what we offer, and from supporters who believe in our mission.
At every step, we have stayed true to Poppy’s light: compassion, creativity, and care at the centre of everything we do.
What Our First Year Has Taught Us
This first year has confirmed something vital: the need for holistic, psychologically informed support for families affected by inherited cardiac conditions is real, urgent, and too often unmet.
While clinical care saves lives, emotional and psychological support sustains them. Families facing diagnoses such as inherited cardiomyopathies, channelopathies, or sudden arrhythmic death syndrome are not only managing medical information, but they are also managing fear, grief, identity shifts, and ongoing uncertainty.
We have seen firsthand how:
- Early psychological intervention can reduce trauma and anxiety
- Supported families are better able to engage with long-term cardiac care
- Young people who feel emotionally understood are more likely to remain connected to services
- Small, human-centred interventions can have a life-changing impact
Crucially, our work does not duplicate statutory services. Instead, it strengthens, complements, and humanises them, filling gaps that clinical teams often recognise but lack capacity or funding to address.
This understanding now guides our responsibility as we look ahead.
Protecting What Makes the Charity Special
Growth brings opportunity, but it also brings risk. As founder, I am deeply conscious that Poppy’s Light Foundation carries not only a name, but a legacy.
The next phase of our journey must protect what makes the charity distinctive while ensuring it is sustainable, credible, and impactful for the long term. That means being thoughtful about pace, clear about priorities, and honest about what we can and cannot do well.
The next three years will be about moving deliberately from a strong founding year into a phase of consolidation, growth, and leadership.
Our Three-Year Strategic Direction (2026–2028)
Our Vision
To ensure that every young person and family affected by inherited cardiac conditions receives compassionate, holistic support alongside excellent clinical care.
Our Mission
Poppy’s Light Foundation exists to improve emotional wellbeing, psychological resilience, and quality of life for young people with cardiac conditions and their families, working in partnership with clinical services and communities.
Strategic Priority One: Deepening Direct Support
At the heart of this charity is people, and the emotional experiences that so often go unseen in cardiac care.
Over the next three years, we will expand and stabilise access to specialist psychological support for families affected by inherited cardiac conditions. This support will remain clinically robust, appropriately delivered, and responsive to real, identified need.
Key areas of focus will include:
- Structured psychological pathways for families affected by Sudden Arrhythmic Death Syndrome
- Ongoing therapeutic support following diagnosis, procedures, or significant cardiac events
- Age-appropriate interventions for children and young people
- Support that acknowledges the needs of parents, siblings, and carers
Alongside this, we will continue to provide meaningful experiences that restore joy, dignity, and connection, recognising that wellbeing is shaped not only in therapy rooms, but in moments of normality, creativity, and shared experience.
Emotional well-being is not an optional extra in cardiac care. It is essential, and this work will always remain central to who we are.
Strategic Priority Two: Strengthening Clinical Integration
Our future impact depends on trusted, collaborative relationships with NHS cardiac teams.
Over the next three years, we will formalise partnerships with clinical services, ensuring our work aligns with evolving cardiac pathways and genuinely supports frontline teams.
This includes:
- Investing in environments and equipment that directly improve patient and family experience
- Supporting clinical development where appropriate
- Working alongside clinicians to identify unmet needs and co-design solutions
By working with clinical teams rather than around them, we ensure that our support is relevant, effective, and embedded, not peripheral.
Strategic Priority Three: Supporting Transition and Lifelong Care
The transition from paediatric to adult cardiac services is one of the most critical, and most overlooked, periods in a young person’s cardiac journey.
Between the ages of approximately 14–25, young people face increased risk of disengagement, anxiety, and loss of continuity of care. Over the next three years, we will focus on reducing that risk and supporting confidence, autonomy, and connection.
Our work in this area will include:
- Continued investment in adult cardiac spaces that feel age-appropriate and welcoming
- Psychological support tailored to adolescents and young adults
- Resources that empower young people to understand and manage their own health
Supporting transition is not just about services, it is about identity, independence, and trust. We believe young people deserve to feel supported, not abandoned, as they move into adulthood.
Strategic Priority Four: Building Awareness, Community, and Advocacy
Poppy’s Light Foundation is sustained by its community, and that community is one of our greatest strengths.
Over the next three years, we will continue to nurture grassroots fundraising, develop our Poppy’s Heroes ambassador network, and grow awareness of inherited cardiac conditions and syncope in schools, workplaces, and the wider public.
Through storytelling and advocacy, we aim to:
- Shift understanding of what it truly means to live with a young person’s cardiac diagnosis
- Reduce stigma and misunderstanding
- Bring lived experience into public and professional conversations
Behind every statistic is a family, a child, and a story, and those stories matter.
Strategic Priority Five: Governance, Sustainability, and Responsibility
As the charity grows, so too does our responsibility.
Over the next three years, we will prioritise:
- Financial sustainability, through diversified and ethical income streams
- Clear impact measurement and transparent reporting
- Ongoing review of governance, risk, and trustee skills
Our goal is not growth for its own sake, but resilience, ensuring that Poppy’s Light Foundation can continue to support families for many years to come, with integrity and accountability at its core.
Looking Forward
This strategy reflects both ambition and care. It is rooted in lived experience, guided by professional expertise, and shaped by the families and clinicians who trust us.
As founder, I remain deeply aware that every decision carries weight. Poppy’s name is not a brand, it is a promise. A promise that we will listen, that we will act thoughtfully, and that we will always place families at the centre of what we do.
Over the next three years, Poppy’s Light Foundation will focus on doing fewer things exceptionally well, measuring our impact with honesty, and leading with compassion.
By 2028, our ambition is to be recognised not simply for what we provide, but for how we provide it, through partnership, humility, and care.
Poppy’s light continues to guide us forward. And together, we will ensure it reaches every family who needs it most.