Community Grief Toolkit [Downloadable!]

Jessica M – It’s OK not to cry

June 13, 2023

Jessica discusses how grief is individual and finding the way forward can be different for everyone.

Nicole – Working in Community Outreach

March 25, 2023

Nicole discusses her work in community outreach and how she has lived experience with addiction and living rough.

Craig – Resilience in the Face of Adversity

August 1, 2023

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.

Caleigh – Play Session

February 22, 2023

Caileigh discusses child play sessions, how children can learn about confusing feelings of grief and ways to cope.

Kristal – Attending Memorials as a Support Worker

April 23, 2023

Kristal discusses the importance of finding ways to honour people that have been lost and how they have impacted you. She speaks to how she often chooses not to attend public memorials for those she has lost as a support worker as they are often very overwhelming. Instead, she has her own personal rituals or ways of honouring those she has lost personally including opening a window. She discusses how this practice was used when she worked in palliative care.

Alongside

February 8, 2023

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.

Jessica M – Legacy

June 13, 2023

Jessica explains legacy and gives examples including her own.

Caileigh – Working with children in grief

February 23, 2023

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.”

Kristal – Activism To Ease Anger and Grief

April 23, 2023

Kristal discusses using activism to help ease or channel her anger from the loss of those in her community to drug poisoning. She talks about her grief being very quiet and inward before, but that taking action helps her to move through it. She discusses how there may not be peace from these losses, but the goal should rather be feeling safe in the emotions.

Craig – There is No Right Way to Grieve

August 1, 2023

Craig talks about his experience with grief and how there is no right or wrong way to grieve. He shares his thoughts on how to allow yourself to do what you need to do to heal, even if it doesn’t seem like “self-care.” This video is a reminder that everyone grieves differently and that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to healing.

Nicole – Pandemic’s Effect on Grieving as a Community

March 25, 2023

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