Meet the team – The Maypole Project

Sally Flatteau Taylor

Chief Executive – Founder and CEO

MSc in counselling, BACP Accredited, trainer, supervisor, therapist, author.

Specialising in working in loss and bereavement since the mid 1990s.

“My passion and drive to develop The Maypole Project was triggered by meeting families in Bromley who had children with complex needs, or who were medically very fragile, who were being supported then at the Bereavement Centre which I co-Directed. The most notable impacts we heard from families was just how a child’s illness severely affected the whole of the lives of the whole of the family – and realised that the appropriate way to support the families must be by an equally holistic response. Families told us this was not being provided by any of the existing services in Bromley and became the primary aim of The Maypole Project. Our services have developed in therapies and activities to provide this.

I also noted that the families’ lived experiences were miles apart from any theories of the psychology of loss that I had read to that date and so we developed the project as a research programme. This research highlighted that the service needed to be:

Person centred, accessible, and flexible with an ongoing programme of support that families could access as they needed, where they needed. The rest of our key service attributes can be read on the website

On setting up the project for Lewisham and Bromley we immediately received calls from other boroughs – and now cover 5 London boroughs. We get daily calls requesting our support in other areas.

My vision is that we develop ways in future to ensure that the whole of the UK can access Maypole support.”