Bereavement Professionals’ Insights

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.”

Jessica M – Finding Hope

Jessica shares memories of her brothers birthday which was just before her mothers death and how they all found hope

Michele – Creative expression and processing grief

Michele tells what advice she would give to her younger grieving selfMichele talks about coping that since being a child how creativity helped

Keith – “Knowing what to say”

Keith gives practical advice about helping someone in grief.

Jenn – Art can give voice

Jenn talks about the barriers that may prevent someone from including art as part of their grief or emotional process including judgment of your art skills and more.

Amanda – “Hospice like home”

Amanda discusses the value of feeling like being at home during palliative care.

Christian – “Remembering together in a meaningful way”

Christian discusses the power of memories.

Claudia – Art in community versus art therapy

Claudia explains how art therapists are trained and how what they do is different that doing art in community

Left Out: Enfranchising Children’s Grief and Loss

By: Jessica Milette, MSW, RSW All human beings have the capacity to grieve: people with intellectual disabilities, those living with a traumatic brain injury, and children of all ages. However, many people can experience disenfranchised grief when someone dies. Disenfranchised grief is generally grief that is not usually openly acknowledged, socially accepted or publicly mourned.…

Jean – It’s all about love

Jean talks about losing her husband to a heart attack on valentines day

Caileigh – Recommendations as a therapist and a griever

Caileigh discussed two recommendations for parents on how to support their child’s grief. as a therapist and a griever. The first is to recognize that being with is far more important than fixing. There’s two pieces to connection. The first being that one of the most important healing aspects to grief is feeling connected to others.

A Million Other Things: Grieving a Drug Poisoning Death

Sister, father, son, niece, best friend – some of these words might be how you would describe your loved one who has died of an overdose or drug poisoning. People Who Use Drugs (PWUD) are not defined by their substance use – they are a million other things to those who love and miss them dearly. Drug poisoning and overdose deaths are stigmatized in our society. The focus is on how the person died, not who they are. Society still holds onto old notions and beliefs about drugs which come with a value judgment about people who use drugs, which further contributes to stigma. Not everyone who uses drugs is an addict and not all drug use is inherently problematic. People who use drugs deserve dignity and respect when we are remembering and honouring those who have died by overdose or drug poisoning.