Supporting Others

Collective Grief

When the death of a person affects many members in a community, city, country, or across the world, people will experience collective grief.

These are some things that can help people through the experience of collective grief across a community.

What Does Grief Support Look Like?

When we experience significant, on-going symptoms of grief that interfere with our adjustment to the reality of our loss, it can be time to seek professional help. It can be difficult to know where to find help and what grief support options are available.

Cara – Intellectual disabilities and advance planning

Cara explains that people living with intellectual disabilities are growing to older ages, much like the rest of the population. And as folks are aging what we’re seeing is the need for families more so than ever, to do some advanced planning for who will take over any caregiving decision making or where that person may live, what sort of support they may need and what that’s going to look like after the parents or the guardians die so that this doesn’t become a crisis situation.

Grief and Parenting in the Disability Community

In this blog post, Carrie writes about being the parent and primary caregiver to a child with disabilities and grieving the loss of a child dying from their disabilities.

Sarah K – Supporting someone in grief

Sarah gives her thoughts on how many things there are you can domto support someone in grief and how to be proactive

Kim – Facebook and connecting

Kim – discussses our need to connect and how Facebook was useful after her Mum’s death

Adrianna – Storytelling… intuitive and instrumental

Adrianna tells how storytelling helped her process her grief

Beauty found at the edges: a portrait of community support

I’d sent a text saying “Hello friends, I’m putting out a call for flowers. I went to public school with Kory, the young man who died in downtown Cobourg this week, and though I hadn’t seen him in recent years, I feel the loss of him on a community level, as I imagine you do, too. Some of Kory’s people are gathering tonight in vigil at the bank where he died, and I’m gathering flowers from those of us who have gardens to share with this grieving community. Do you have some blooms in your garden that you’d be willing to share?”

John – Being helpful to someone in grief

John shares his thoughts on how to help someone in grief

Holly – How can we help someone who is grieving

Holly has some helpful tips how to help someone who is grieving

Community Grief Toolkit [Downloadable!]

This toolkit also reflects on how we support grief in the community. The tools to come together and honour our collective experiences and how to build the resources for further support.

Laura- Loss to Suicide