Honoured to deliver Loss in the Time of COVID: Exploring the Impact of Grief as the Keynote address at Trillium Health Partners in support of National Hospice Palliative Care Week in Canada.
My sincere gratitude to everyone who joined our discussion via Zoom, for sharing time, reflections and energy - and for acknowledging the impact of trauma, loss and grief for healthcare providers as we continue to serve so many facing trauma, loss and grief during the pandemic.
Incredibly honoured as the Clinical Lead to receive the Best Oral Paper Award at #HPCO2022 Hospice Palliative Care Ontario Annual Provincial Conference with our incredible interprofessional team: Ann Vander Berg, Allyson Oliphant, and champion for our project - Dr. Andrea Folic for "Care Beyond Walls: Innovation, Implementation and Evaluation of a Medical Assistance in Dying-Specific Bereavement Support Group for Caregivers"
So grateful to speak with my friends and colleagues Drs. Hsien Seow and Sammy Winemaker on their podcast The Waiting Room Revolution.
We explored the role of Social Work in Palliative Care, the value of proactive and compassionate person and family-centred support following diagnosis of any serious illness, exploring loss and grief through to end-of-life and bereavement, creating space for essential conversations, and the healing power of silence.
Follow their podcast for essential tips and tools to navigate the healthcare system following diagnosis of a serious illness. To listen to our conversation, click here
The ARQ of Grief Support:
Awareness
Reflection
Questions
The ARQ of Grief Support via NACG, The Dougy Center & KinderCare is a framework you can use to create meaningful, supportive interactions with children, teens and adults facing grief, loss & grieving
Source: https://childrengrieve.org/12-resource/309-resources-2
I am honoured to share my winter 2022 newsletter with free resources for individuals and families of all ages facing a complex illness, following diagnosis through to bereavement.
I am also grateful to also share teaching experiences including: undergraduate and graduate Social Work Education; undergraduate interdisciplinary education; and Interprofessional Education for healthcare providers and volunteers exploring informed conversations, honouring person and family-centred care, demystifying grief, and advocating for high-quality palliative care.
Join the #UnderstandGrief movement! Here's how:
1. Advocate that grief is not a mental disorder; our social and cultural context impacts how we grieve. Question the narrative of “mental disorders” and consider all the factors that can contribute to how a person responds to the death of someone in their lives.
2. Consider the language you use and how it can impact people. People who are grieving often receive patronizing responses to “move on” or “find closure” when what they need most is to feel understood.
3. Educate others about being grief-informed. Share the 10 core principles of being grief-informed.
4. Broaden the dialogue about the need for diversity and inclusivity in grief research and support. We need to reach beyond limited and narrow perspectives to understand and support how grief is experienced by people of different beliefs, cultures, ethnicities, backgrounds, abilities, and experiences.
5. Challenge myths about grief. Grief doesn’t follow an orderly path. When someone is grieving, don’t impose expectations on them about how they should feel or respond, or how long their grief should last. Every experience of loss is different.
6. Acknowledge and address the injustices of labels. Rather than labeling people who are grieving with a mental disorder, consider framing the challenges we face when we’re grieving as just that: challenges we experience when coping with the death of someone in our lives.
7. Recognize and acknowledge that every experience of loss is a unique experience. People will likely respond to the death of each person in their life differently because every relationship is unique.
8. Strengthen relational connections. We need connections with others who are understanding and compassionate, especially when difficult and painful things happen.
9. Honour lived experience. To honour the lived experience of others involves offering the gift of nonjudgmental listening, open mindedness, and support.
10. Be compassionate with yourself and with others. One of the ways we can “walk our talk” is to demonstrate the same compassion toward ourselves that we hope others will have for themselves, particularly when we’re grieving.
Via The Dougy Center
Most don't know what to say when someone is grieving. Here are some suggestions to offer a grieving parent, caregiver, or colleague. These questions can also be adapted for children.
via National Alliance for Grieving Children, The Dougy Center and KinderCare Education
Am truly honoured to host “How We Talk About Grief” on behalf of The 100% Certainty Project. Death: Something to Talk About for gritLIT 2021. I am thrilled to meet both Dakshana Bascaramurty and Christa Couture and explore their experiences with loss and grief as we discuss their exquisite memoirs.
An all-too-familiar certainty, grief is an emotion that’s difficult for most of us to put into words. In This Is Not the End of Me, Dakshana Bascaramurty documents the final years of a husband and father diagnosed with terminal cancer at age 33. In How to Lose Everything, Christa Couture shares her own excruciating loss, including the amputation of her leg as a cure for bone cancer and the death of two children.
Join me on April 18th at 2pm as I ask these brilliant authors to discuss the challenges of talking and writing about grief and how the process of doing so helps with healing.
#gritLIT2021
CGAD is designed to help us all become more aware of the needs of grieving children teens and families — and of the benefits they obtain through the support of others. Children's Grief Awareness Day is an opportunity to make sure that grieving children receive the support they need.
Before they graduate from high school, one child out of every 20 children will have a parent die - and that number doesn't include those who experience the death of a brother or sister, a close grandparent, an aunt or uncle, or friend.
Grieving children often feel set apart, different from their peers, alone and not understood. Every school and every community has children who have experienced some type of loss. Even if they keep their loss and experience to themselves, there are many children who are grieving among us.
These children can be helped to not feel so alone. Children and adults together can show their support for grieving children and show their awareness of what grieving children might be going through by participating in Children's Grief Awareness Day.
Source: CGAD. For more information or resources, visit: https://www.childrensgriefawarenessday.org/cgad2/about/index.shtml
DID YOU KNOW???? On CGAD, the CN Tower / La Tour CN will be illuminated in blue to raise awareness of this important issue
This Virtual MAiD Bereavement Support Group is free and offered to anyone (+18yo) in Ontario following the death of a loved one via MAiD. While we wish we could offer this group in-person, the support will now be provided online in light of COVID-19 restrictions.
Am grateful to be part of the development team and one of the co-facilitators for this group. This group is being co-facilitated by myself and a spiritual care provider and is limited in that we can only offer unilingual support (English speaking). We also appreciate this means that someone must have access to a phone or WiFi and understand that not everyone has that luxury.
People can self-refer. The program will run for 4 weeks starting November 25th. We intentionally take a break over the holidays and reconvene to offer the remaining 4 weeks in January to continue to process and honour the range of loss experiences and explore compassionately moving forward.
The contact information for self-referral is on the attached poster. Spaces are limited. For more information, call (905) 521 2100 x73621 or email adras@hhsc.ca
Grief and bereavement support is an essential element of care for individuals and families of all ages.
This year, the Canadian Hospice Palliative Care Association (CHPCA) invites Canadians on a shared journey that fosters compassion and encourages them to cope with their grief by supporting each other through living and grieving. We might be physically distant, but grief brings us together. We learn to live with the loss and grief in ways that maintain and honour our bond with the person who died but don’t limit our capacity for joy, pleasure and a meaningful life. At this trying time, we might be physically distant, but we are emotionally, spiritually and socially connected through our grief. Source: CHPCA
For more information, visit: CHPCA
Honoured to present "The Saturation of Grief in the time of COVID, Honouring Loss and Exploring Healing" for Ethics and Diversity Grand Rounds organized by Ethics & Care Ecologies Program at Hamilton Health Sciences with Dr. Andrea Frolic.
Exploring universal yet unique experiences of loss and grief in healthcare, alongside the stigma, and creating brave spaces for healing is essential - for ALL involved - especially now.
I am deeply grateful to Nurses everywhere - for all that you do for so many and am truly honoured to join the compassionate clinicians in the Palliative Care Nurses Interest Group for the Registered Nurses' Association of Ontario (RNAO) virtual AGM on June 11th 2020 to present “Loss in the time of COVID: Exploring the Impact of Grief in the Year of the Nurse”.
Actively Moving Forward® (AMF) is a network created in response to the needs of grieving young adults (ages 18-30) and is connecting, supporting, empowering grieving young adults to “actively move forward” in memory of their person.
Now, a FREE AMF app offers new ways to connect!
“You’ll have full access to facilitated virtual support groups, tools, resources, reading, videos, supportive quotes, community engagement via direct messaging, group chats, posts and interactive comment boards. Group members may be tagged by person in their life that died so that members grieving a similar death loss can easily find each other.”
Time to connect on a whole new level. Deepen friendships, engage with groups, simplified chats, find events, webinars and a host of other valuable and helpful resources.
To register for this app and access FREE bereavement support, visit Actively Moving Forward®
Excited to share my December 2019 newsletter with an update about free resources and community support for anyone facing serious illness, uncertainty and grief. Am also grateful to share recent teaching opportunities across Interprofessional Education, dedicated Social Work Education, a grief conference and two national webinars.
As always, I share free resources and information across my Social Media platforms. Please connect and follow me on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
Am truly honoured to be offering the Plenary Session “Caring for the Caregiver: Recognizing the Impact of Vicarious Trauma on Helpers and Strategies for Self-Care“ for the Annual Children’s Grief Awareness Symposium at Lighthouse Centre for Grieving Children, Youth and Families.
For information or to register, please visit: https://www.grievingchildrenlighthouse.org/index.php/news-and-events/upcoming-events/104-events/upcoming-events/events-2019/482-grief-symposium-2019#live-session-descriptions
About the Lighthouse Centre for Grieving Children, Youth and Families:
“The Lighthouse provides a place where children, teens, and their parents and guardians who have experienced a life changing death loss can come together to be part of a community. Through participation in facilitated peer groups, they find understanding, stability and support.
Any child or teen, ages 3-19, who has experienced the death of an immediate family member or very close friend can join a group. Parents and guardians are welcome to attend the adult peer support groups which are offered at the same time as the children/teen groups.
Often, family members feel the need to protect one other from their feelings. At The Lighthouse, children and youth have their own space where they can feel safe to share their feelings with peers who have also experienced a life changing death. This expression of feelings, thoughts and experiences helps them reach an understanding of their loss and builds hope and encouragement for their future.”
Source: Lighthouse
To donate to the Lighthouse Centre for Grieving Children, Youth and Families, please visit: https://www.grievingchildrenlighthouse.org/index.php/support-us
Excited to be facilitating another Death Cafe for the Division of Palliative Care, McMaster Faculty of Health Sciences at McMaster University.
If you are a Healthcare Provider, Health Science Student, Hospice Palliative Care Volunteer or Funeral Service Employee, this Death Cafe is specifically for you!
A Death Cafe is a group directed discussion of death with no agenda, objectives or themes. It is a discussion group rather than a grief support or counselling session. The objective is 'to increase awareness of death with a view to helping people make the most of their (finite) lives'. Source: Death Cafe
Please join us at this FREE event at the David Braley Health Sciences Centre on Wednesday, July 24th from 6-8pm as part of our Public Health Palliative Care Elective.
Please help spread the word. While the event is free, registration is required via Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/death-cafe-tickets-62361840945?fbclid=IwAR2aqlWTC8CcDPU4TKspXU3hZC65Om4ZxZZikvgh9ztqz3TEUe9GJcFLJ00
Am honoured to be a Clinical Lead for Camp Erin Toronto, an incredible FREE weekend bereavement camp for children and youth aged 6-17.
Camp Erin Toronto is provided FREE to families and is open to any child who has experienced the death of an immediate family member or custodial caregiver, regardless of cause or length of time since the death. Activities focus on providing campers with the tools needed to help them in their grief and with difficult experiences throughout their lives, while enhancing overall wellness, play and vitality.
Camp Erin gives children and youth the opportunity to meet with other grieving kids in a fun and natural environment; understanding that they are not the only ones to experience the death of someone close to them decreases the sense of isolation that many grieving children experience. Source: https://drjaychildrensgriefcentre.ca/programs/camp-erin/
As a registered charity that DOES NOT RECEIVE GOVERNMENT FUNDING, Camp Erin Toronto depends on the generosity of donors. For information, to refer or to donate, please visit: https://drjaychildrensgriefcentre.ca/programs/camp-erin/
For information on other Camp Erin locations in Canada and the U.S. visit: https://elunanetwork.org/camps-programs/camp-erin/
Am thrilled to be offering a full-day of training on Feb. 1st for the Halton District School Board on “EXPLORING GRIEF AND LOSS LITERACY: SUPPORTING AND EMPOWERING SCHOOL COMMUNITIES”
Will be honoured to be present with so many professionals as we spend the day exploring:
- Grief and Loss Literacy (related to dying, death and non-death losses)
- Stigma Related to Illness, Dying, Grief
- The Dialogue of Loss
- Support Across School Communities
- Promoting Capacity & Engagement
- Opportunities for Self-Care
Looking forward to sharing some brilliant resources!
