Bereavement

<h3>Background</h3> The ability to provide holistic support for families is extremely important. As an organisation that looks after adults with terminal illness, their partners, carers and families, we were aware that we did not provide bereavement support to young people under the age of 18 who may have had a relative or loved one supported by hospice care. To target this gap in service provision we are working with a national youth charity to provide a new support service to young people coping with family long-term illness and bereavement. <h3>Aim</h3> To support young people to cope with bereavement and look to the future. <h3>Method</h3> A 12-week programme delivered by youth workers will engage young people in positive activities and provide pre- and post- bereavement support. Through a process of creative therapies and outdoor activities it will give young people a voice, allow them to share their experiences with other young people in similar circumstances, provide decompression time and an outlet with people who understand and care. <h3>Results</h3> By engaging young people in positive activities during a difficult time in their lives, it is hoped the programme will improve confidence and self-esteem, create positive peer relationships, let them explore and develop aspirations and deliver increased resilience and coping strategies. Evaluation of the programme will be multi-faceted with a mixture of self-evaluation, using Star Outcome Diagrams, staff evaluation including interviews with journey plans and observational feedback. A 50:50 funding split has been agreed for the initial programme with a commitment to a second phase being delivered in late 2016. <h3>Conclusion</h3> Coping with bereavement can be extremely difficult for young people and if successful the programme would extend the level of care being provided to support young people pre- and post- bereavement, expanding the holistic support that can be offered to families.

Sarah Bowers

Judith Park

Christie Munle

<b>P-6</b> Inspiring young people – time 4 you programme!

<b>P-6</b> 激励年轻人——“时间4你”计划！

The local adult hospice has experience of supporting children and young people experiencing the life- threatening illness and subsequent death of a loved one. Clear potential for partnership working was identified following the receipt of funding from the local Clinical Commissioning Group. Funding was allocated to develop a bereavement service for individuals bereaved by sudden and unexpected death. Through this, a bereavement group for children supported by the hospice and the local bereavement service was developed. Children's workers from both services pooled experience and knowledge to provide eight sessions for bereaved children, young people and their parent/carer. Clients attending the group were extremely supportive of each other and some have gone on to have one-to-one support, visited by a member of the team within school or at home so that they can continue the exploration of their loss that the group initiated. The hospice team had not worked with clients bereaved by sudden and unexpected death before, and they were challenged to build on their existing skills. Education and support for the team was crucial. De-briefs followed each group meeting enabling facilitators to explore how the session had impacted on them. Supervision was also provided on a regular basis. The group did not cater for children and young people bereaved by suicide. It was felt that the loss was so different that it might not be constructive for the clients. However, following the success of an adult group which focussed on loss by suicide, the staff are feeling an increase in skill, knowledge and confidence. Therefore in response to the high number of referrals for children, a group is planned for September 2016. Partnership working has been a positive experience enabling both services to develop their portfolio of services within the local community.

Sarah Popplestone-Helm

Sarah Wardell

<b>P-5</b> Extending bereavement support for children and families to include support for those experiencing sudden and unexpected death

《P-5》将儿童和家庭的丧亲支持扩展到包括经历突发和意外死亡的人群

<h3>Background</h3> Islington Bereavement Service started providing emotional, social and practical support to bereaved individuals living in Islington in July 2015. Based on the Compassionate Communities approach, the service is designed to empower community members to address their bereavement needs. In doing so, new peer support networks are formed which increases resilience to bereavement within the community. <h3>Aim</h3> A service evaluation is being performed on the bereavement service. The main aim of the evaluation is to explore how the service impacts community members and volunteers. <h3>Method</h3> Islington Bereavement Service trains bereavement support volunteers to deliver peer-support sessions to community members. In order to assess the impact of the peer-support sessions on community members' wellbeing, attitude to grief and loneliness; questionnaires are being administered to community members before and after receiving peer-support sessions. The questionnaire consists of: the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale, the Adult Attitude to Grief Scale, the UCLA Three-item Loneliness Scale and cost-effectiveness questions. Community members' satisfaction with the service will also be assessed. The projected sample size is 10 to 15 community members. Two focus groups are being held with four to six volunteers in each group. The focus groups will explore volunteers' experience of volunteering within the service, their motivation to volunteer and what they have gained from volunteering. <h3>Time frame</h3> The evaluation will be completed on 31 August 2016. <h3>Results</h3> Wilcoxon signed-rank test will be used to detect significant changes in community member outcomes from before to after receiving support. Recorded data from the focus groups will be transcribed and undergo inductive thematic analysis to detect emerging themes. <h3>Conclusion</h3> Implications of predicted results may include: improvement in the quality of support provided, evidence for future funding, evidence for peer-to-peer bereavement support in the community and evidence of the benefits of volunteering.

Harriet Duthie

P-11 Evaluation of islington bereavement service

P-11 伊斯灵顿丧亲服务评估

<h3>Objectives</h3> The idea came from an eight-year old client receiving bereavement support. He knew of our evening films for grown-ups and suggested films on a Saturday morning for children and their families. He thought <i>Up </i>would be a good start. Our community engagement programme now offers a monthly Saturday family event all the year round. We have outdoor activities during Spring and Summer and films in the Autumn and Winter. All family members can participate in the support we give our youngest clients. <h3>Death literacy</h3> The films screened have themes of loss, ageing, illness and death within stories of love, compassion and care. Films for children do not shirk death and can look at it sensitively with a respectful regard for life. <i>Up </i>is a wonderful example. <h3>Education</h3> It provides a safe environment for families to experience together their feelings and thoughts around loss. Children are always keen to talk about the film afterwards. During a sad part of <i>Inside Out </i>a little girl left her comfy chair to have a cuddle with mum seated nearby. She returned to her own seat when the sad moments passed. If empathy is about imagining another person's world from the perspective of your own, then films certainly encourage that regardless of age. <h3>Outcomes</h3> Attendance and feedback have been extremely encouraging with families suggesting films for future screenings to watch together in a group. One dad said it provided something to do with his young daughter at the weekend. <h3>Future possibilities</h3> Inspired by our young client, we are now considering asking teenagers at the drop-in service if they would like to watch films together. Experiencing a film in a hospice setting clearly has the potential to help support bereaved people of all ages.

Elizabeth Wastling

Jo Derry

Jamie Johnstone

<b>P-9</b> Saturday morning pictures: a children’s team initiative

<b>P-9</b> 周六早场电影：儿童团队倡议

Jessie May is a children's hospice at home charity which was founded in 1994 by the parents of Jessica May following her death aged 4½ months. Whilst working with the families, Jessie May nurses recognised a need for bereavement support and began to offer parents telephone calls, support visits and send cards to acknowledge the children's birthday and death anniversaries. In 2010, a recently bereaved Parent Representative for the Clinical Governance Group observed that, as parents 'need to grieve for themselves', there was a gap in the Jessie May bereavement service and initiated discussions around the potential for a parents' support group. Following this discussion, the parent representative worked with the bereavement lead to set up the Purple Group and trialled an initial four meetings. The core purpose was to enable bereaved parents to come together within a peer group to discuss the loss of their children and feelings around that loss, gaining support through shared experiences and would describe it as 'therapeutic' rather than a 'therapy group'. No one would be pressured to speak, but parents would have the opportunity to share their stories and experiences. So far there have been 26 meetings over six years. There is empathy within the group and parents listen to each other, giving respect and encouragement. Each meeting has no agenda or topic so parents can talk about anything they choose, although recurring themes focus around anniversaries, Christmas and expectations from others for parents to 'move on'. Meetings are arranged a year in advance to enable parents to plan ahead to attend as many meetings as they wish. Jessie May continues to seek informal feedback from parents and by conducting formal questionnaires to ensure they are providing a service that is useful and needed by all of the parents on the Jessie May bereavement caseload.

Helen Williams

Liz Lewington

Julie Kembrey

<b>P-13</b> The purple group – development of a parent-led bereavement group – the jessie may experience

<b>P-13</b> 紫色小组——家长主导的哀伤支持小组的发展——杰西·梅的经验

This paper explores the profound emotional and physical journey of a couple in The Phillipines who faced the rare medical condition known as Repro-Immuno Deficiency (RID) while trying to conceive. The author and his wife endured the heartbreak of four miscarriages and the financial strain of various medical treatments, eventually leading to the birth of their fifth child. The paper discusses the emotional toll of repeated miscarriages, the challenges of accessing specialised medical care, and the financial burdens they encountered during their journey. It also highlights the support they received from a diverse network of individuals and the significance of their daughter as a symbol of hope and resilience.

Ariel Gutierez

Finding light in the darkness: A journey through four miscarriages

黑暗中的光芒：四次流产的心路历程

There is increased recognition of the need to improve standards of perinatal bereavementcare, due to its frequency and potential sequelae. As part of a Fulbright Scholar award, United States (US) and United Kingdom (UK) researchers collaborated to explore similarities and differences in perinatal bereavement care between two nations. Using an explorative qualitative comparative method, key categories within perinatal bereavement provision were identified and analysed. Themed findings include: (1) Differences in definitions of miscarriage and stillbirth impact care pathways; (2) For the experiencer grief is the same regardless of legal lines drawn; (3) The meaning of loss is personal and ‘fetal personhood’ needs to be acknowledged during care; (4) Appropriate psychological care is required whether miscarriage or stillbirth is experienced. We conclude that perinatal bereavement care should include screening for Postnatal Depression (PND) and Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder (PTSD), and support should be equally available to all women who experience perinatal bereavement, irrespective of type of loss. Acknowledging that cultures react to loss in different ways, we recommend that strategies are developed to build human resilience. For example, Compassionate-Mind-Training (CMT), which helps people copewith trauma through cultivating compassion and teaching self-care strategies to buildresilience, reduce self-criticism, and decrease threat-based emotions.

Caroline Joy Hollins Martin

Denise Côté Arsenault

Gail Norris

Reflective evaluations of perinatal bereavement care provision in the US and UK: An exploratory qualitative comparative study

美国和英国围产期丧亲护理服务的反思性评估：一项探索性定性比较研究

As Covid-19 deaths continue, so does the grief that is experienced by those impacted by such loss. Accordingly, the Pandemic Grief Scale (PGS) was created as a screening tool for health professionals to use in identifying individuals suffering from dysfunctional levels of this form of grief. With the development of this measure, this paper serves to replicate and extend the psychometric findings on the PGS, using an independent US sample of 318 adults who lost a significant person from Covid-19. The results of this study largely replicated the findings of the original PGS study by demonstrating acceptable parameters on factor structure, diagnostic and discrimination accuracy, and evidence of convergent validity. However, convergent validity support was not found with the lack of correlation between PGS scores and a measure of positive well-being. The results of this study also recommended a lower cut-score than the one proposed by the original PGS study. Overall, these results support the PGS as a psychometrically sound screening tool for assessing pandemic-related, dysfunctional grief.

Sherman Lee

Amanda Mathis

Mary Jobe

Emily Pappalardo

Robert Neimeyer

Screening for dysfunctional Covid-19 grief: A replication and extension

筛查功能失调的COVID-19悲伤：一项重复与扩展研究

After a drug-related death, the bereaved are at risk of severe social and health consequences, but their need for professional support in their bereavement processes often falls under the radar. The bereaved themselves ask for continued support, and the research shows significant symptoms of prolonged grief for years after the loss. This article explores professionals’ perspectives on providing bereavement support to bereaved clients after a drug-related death. The article builds on focus group interviews with professionals from different health and welfare services in Norway who are likely to encounter the bereaved in their client work. A total of six focus group interviews were conducted, involving 29 professionals from services such as mental health and drug services, residential care, low threshold services, and medical services. The results show that bereavement support for the drug-death bereaved is perceived as demanding relational work that is not part of their primary work tasks. The work is highly individualised because formal organisational structures are lacking, which can impair bereaved peoples’ access to bereavement support. The lack of training, knowledge, and clear responsibility may lead to professionals lacking confidence and withdrawing from support initiatives in order to avoid stress and burnout.

Monika Reime

Birthe Møgster

Kjersti Halvorsen

Bereavement support after a drug-related death: Professional perspectives

药物相关死亡后的哀伤支持：专业视角

During the pandemic, older adults were at risk of heightened social isolation and bereavement overload. However, engagement in online grief communities can facilitate meaningful social connections and promote healthy bereavement practices. This paper highlights the benefits of engaging in meaning-making, community building, and griefwork in later life. We engage with recent literature on virtual bereavement practices and discuss the ongoing potential for bereaved older adults to engage in online grief communities amid the new realities of Covid-19. We consider what it means to process grief in a virtual space and how this may shape approaches to death, dying, and bereavement during and after a global pandemic. We conclude with a call to action to develop accessible and affordable online engagement technologies for older adults to help mitigate a decline in well-being and promote healthy bereavement practices.

Samantha Teichman

Rachel Weldrick

Good (virtual) grief: The potential of online communities for bereaved older adults during Covid-19

良好的（虚拟）悲伤：新冠疫情期间在线社区对丧亲老年人的潜力

Abbreviation
Journal Impact	2.08
Quartiles(Global)	SOCIAL WORK(Q1)

ISSN	2754-7833
h-index	18

Publication Information	Publisher: Cruse Bereavement Care，Publishing cycle: ，Journal Type: journal，Open Access Journals: No
Basic data	Year of publication: 2022，Proportion of original research papers: 100.00%，Self Citation Rate:， Gold OA Rate: 0.00%

Bereavement

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P-6 Inspiring young people – time 4 you programme!

P-5 Extending bereavement support for children and families to include support for those experiencing sudden and unexpected death