Coping With Loss: Bake Off Jeff's Words Of Advice

The Reality Tv Star IsHoping To Help Kiwi Dads DealWith Grief.

- Kelly Bertrand

When Tarakani dad Jeff Poole first stepped foot into The Great Kiwi Bake Off tent, he knew there was a possibility his life could change forever.

Well, it has – but definitely not in the way he expected, and it has nothing to with striving for the title of New Zealand’s best amateur baker.

It was one of his fellow contestants who inadvertently set Jeff (49), a marketing and communications professional and longtime cook and baker, down a different path – helping other Kiwi dads who have lived through the same horrific experience as Jeff.

He and his wife Alyssa have had to deal with every parent’s worst nightmare, losing their third child Xander to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome when he was just six months old.

“He’d be 17 now,” Jeff says. But during the aftermath of their loss, Jeff and Alyssa (50), who are also parents to Thaddeus (21), Lael (19) and Sijenna (15), found the material available to help devastated parents was mostly aimed at mums, with not much around for dads.

“When we were going through the grieving process, I realised that there was very little help from the perspective of a man,” he tells.

“At the time, someone very wisely gave me a blank journal to write down what I was thinking.”