Bereavement Professionals’ Insights

Amanda – “Hospice”

Amanda talks about the comfort zone in palliative care.

Marija – Latent grief

Marija explains latent grief

Caileigh – A safe place to grow and heal

Caileigh talks about how accessing play therapy can support everybody. When children have that safe place to heal, everybody around them feels good and can heal, too.

There One Day and Gone the Next : Art Therapy and Grief

This blog post contains information about using art therapy to process grief, including specific examples.

Cara – Intellectual disabilities, sharing and expressing about grief

Cara discusses how it’s very important that people living with intellectual disabilities have the opportunity to not only know about the information about the person being ill and dying and having the choice and opportunity to go to after death rituals. It’s also really important that they get the opportunity to share their story in whatever way they communicate. This can be verbally through sign language, through communication books, art, music, going for walks, being in nature

Cara – Grief and intellectual disabilities is a topic that needs to “get out there”

Cara shares some information from a participant in her research on intellectual disabilities and the bereaved. A person with an intellectual disability said… “Grief: It’s a topic that needs to get out there” Grief is something that so many people are hesitant to talk about, to display, to show, because there’s so many social rules around how we grieve. This is particularily challenging for the intellectually disabled.

Jacqueline – Humour

Jacqueline talks about how huour has a place in grieving

Jacqueline – Art Therapy & Grief

Jacqueline discusses about art therapy and how it brings a special layer to help move through grief

Keith – “My story”

Keith tells his story and why he became a counsellor.

Keith – “Disenfranchised Grief”

Keith describes disenfranchised grief.

Janice – “Grief is a response to loss”

Janice discusses waves of grief and how important it is to go with it.

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.