I Am A Professional

Craig – Grieving as a Single Parent

In this video, Craig talks about the challenges of grieving as a single parent. He shares his own experiences and offers advice on how to cope with grief, talk to your kids about what’s happening, and ask for help from others.This video is for any single parent who is grieving the loss of a loved one. It is also for anyone who knows a single parent who is grieving and wants to offer support.

Craig – Resilience in the Face of Adversity

Craig how he overcame a series of challenges, including the loss of his marriage, his job, and his home. He talks about how he found the strength to keep going and how he learned to be more resilient.

Kristal – Harm Reduction

Kristal speaks to the importance of harm reduction and how it can save lives. She discusses how accessing harm reduction leads to the creation of connections with community support. It allows community outreach members to connect with community members and get to know them, and to know to look for them if they don’t see them when they usually do.

Caileigh – Sharing grief experience to spread hope and kindness

Caileigh talks about taking the opportunity to share her personal and professional grief experiences as a way to spread hope and to spread kindness.

Nicole – Pandemic’s Effect on Grieving as a Community

Nicole discusses the ways the pandemic has affected the way people grieve as a community.

Christian – Grieving the whole person

Christian talks about how we choose remember people when there has been a loss to drug poisoning

Christian – Denial and grieving

Christian discusses what happens after members of the community die from drug poisoning and how it’s OK for grief to be messy

Jessica M – Grief is unique for each person

Jessica discusses our uniquenesses during grief, giving yourself permission to grieve and that there are many ways of self care during grief.

Craig – My Cumulative Grief

Craig shares his story of experiencing a series of significant losses over the course of two years. He talks about the shock, grief, and uncertainty he felt during this time, and how he coped with the accumulation of loss.Craig’s story is a reminder that grief is a normal and natural response to loss, but it can be overwhelming when it comes in waves. If you are experiencing grief, it is important to reach out for support from friends, family, or a therapist. There is no right or wrong way to grieve, and everyone experiences it differently. The important thing is to be patient with yourself and to allow yourself to feel your emotions.

Kristal – Lack of Memorials During Pandemic

Kristal talks about how memorials can offer closure to people who are grieving, find a community, and share stories. With the absence of this during the pandemic, many people turned inward to grieve or isolated, which can create safety issues and have an impact on mental health. She speaks to how this leads to depression, physical pain, and it compounds upon itself.

Alongside

That is also our best, and only role, when supporting a person with a developmental disability to grieve. We must be the one that comes alongside. There is no closer place we can get to. We must be present, be with, perhaps not understanding or comprehending what the person we support is experiencing, but alongside them nonetheless. We must be there, ready to provide whatever we can discover of their unique need in grief.

Caileigh – Working with children in grief

Caileigh shares why she likes working with and supporting children in grief. “Over the course of their lives, children and youth and families experience a lot of losses, and it’s an empowering job to empower others. I’m not only empowering them, but I’m also building parent capacity in recognizing that it does take a village and it takes a community to support a child.”