Chloe was a bright, intelligent,
caring young woman. During her free time she worked for our local Social
Services as a Sessional Worker. This involved preparing documentation, case
studies, and reports for possible court hearings involving child neglect,
adoption, violence and alcohol abuse. She did supervised visits with children
and parents where she would assess the interactions between the children and
parents raising any concerns with the various departments and support networks.
She would often collect children
from their foster carers taking them to various support centres ensuring
structured visiting and safety for both the children and parents involved.
Chloe also became involved with
the NCH (National Children’s Homes) Action for Children – Keys Project, in the
role of helping young parents and their families with re-housing, enabling them
to work through the complicated local authority housing systems, help with
welfare benefits, emergency housing for children and parents, child care and
parenting groups.
All of this was as well as her
university studies – not only is Chloe a heartbreaking loss to our family she is
a loss to society too. A remarkable young woman without doubt.
We raised £1,200 at Chloe’s
funeral which we are dividing between our local NCH Action for Children
programme and Sure Start family support network. Chloe would have been
delighted with this. My sister Jayne and I, along with Catherine and Ed from
the local NCH programme had a day out before Christmas buying Xmas presents for
some of the families Chloe had worked with. These gifts ranged from toys for
the children to microwaves and deep fat fryers! We then spent another evening
wrapping up all the presents. Chloe would have been so excited with all of
this, if only she could have delivered them to the families too. The donation
to our local Sure Start programme is due to be completed shortly.
We have since been given a
donation of £5,000 by a local family who wish to remain anonymous. This is a
wonderful gesture in memory of Chloe. I do hope that it will help towards one
of the CRY programmes/equipment currently required.
We hope that this has given you an
insight into Chloe as a person and what a great contribution such a young person
has made to society.
Tina, John and Alexander
(Chloe’s brother) Leach
“To die is
simply to sleep and if young cover their eyes for they will always sparkle”
