Loss & Grief Training
Although change and loss is an inevitable part of life, it mostly comes with a great sense of shock and a resistance to embrace it
Through Beaté’s own experience of loss and working with many people from all sorts of parts of the world and walks of life, she knows that the only way to heal a loss is by working through it. The training courses Beaté provides in this area are sensitively facilitated with the principle that there are ‘no rules for grieving’. Mindfulness is encouraged and a brave heart. She also provides one-to-one counselling support to anyone who is ready to talk about their pain.
Loss and Grief Work With Adults
Course Outline:
Develop a comprehensive understanding of loss and grief and practical support strategies to use with individuals and communities.
Course Content:
Many of our client’s experiences of loss and grief is through illness, disability, re-location or the death of a significant other. This one-day workshop will cover at the many aspects of loss (physical, social, psychological and community). It will also look at support of bereaved people and their needs in the early days of their grief. Participants will be able to identify those who are at risk and learn about appropriate referral sources. Participants will also be encouraged to look at their own issues around loss and the need for self-nurturing and supervision when working with the bereaved.
The workshop will provide participants with a general understanding of the issues involved in supporting people through loss, grief and bereavement and the basic skills required for providing such support.
Learning Outcomes:
- Explain the theories and models of grief and bereavement counselling
- Recognise different types of losses
- Explain issues and dynamics in grief counselling
- Identify methods of support
- Detail the risk factors and methods of support and intervention
- Determine what is a normal reaction to loss
- Identify self-care strategies
Loss and Grief Work With Children and Young People
Course Outline:
Help grieving children and young people to heal by developing age appropriate loss interventions and practical strategies.
Course Content:
Managing change, loss and grief is an inevitable part of children and young peoples’ lives as they deal with issues such as separation, divorce death and other significant loss experiences. This workshop is based on the theory the theory that believes that the better children learn to manage and grow through these changes the more resilient they become as they face further changes in their adult life. A worker’s greatest contribution to the success of children or adolescent’s integration of significant losses experiences is understanding the implications of loss experiences, knowing loss and grief from a child’s developmental perspective and strategies of helping children to work through age appropriate interventions will be explored.
This workshop draws from the “Seasons for Growth” program which is an Australian grief and loss support program for children and young people. The workshop will invite “story telling” as a strategy and emphasise the important role of feeling, thinking, questioning and deciding and doing in order to heal life’s hurts and to bring about change. Case examples, art therapy and dvd segments will illustrate the profound nature of childhood/ adolescence grief as they struggle to make sense of their world after a significant loss and change.
Learning Outcomes:
- Identify different responses children and young people have to loss
- Describe the skills that develop to assist in managing grief reactions
- Assess normal loss and grief responses
- Discuss children’s concepts of death and how this impacts on the grief process
- Explore practical strategies that assist children and young people to come to terms with their loss so to promote healing and growth.
Suicide Bereavement Support
Course Outline:
Transform the tragic loss through suicide into a possible opportunity to prevent further loss and brush up your suicide prevention skills.
Course Content:
Experiencing the sudden loss of a friend or loved one usually throws people into a major crisis of loss, grief and bereavement. Loosing someone through suicide usually triggers more than this crisis as it raises many questions, concerns and responses that are unique to the loss through suicide. This course provides an opportunity to explore these specialised issues and provides a background on how to best support the bereaved client/s. Many people in our community are feeling isolated and are confused through this sudden loss and are at risk of becoming vulnerable to suicidal thoughts themselves. The aim this course is to empower workers to tackle the fallout caused through suicide so that the tragic loss of a person could potentially turn into a positive turning point for an individual or a community.
Learning Outcomes:
- Understand the needs of people bereaved through suicide
- Develop strategies to provide support and a healing environment
- Learn how to challenge societal attitudes towards suicide
- Revise the steps of suicide prevention
- Explore strategies that can turn the personal and community loss of suicide into an action or commitment to positive change
Change and Loss in Disability Work
Course Outline:
Develop strategies that support clients with a disability and their carers in a proactive way that helps them to negotiate their anticipated ongoing losses in a proactive way.
Course Content:
Loss and grief is the underlying issues that people are confronted with on an ongoing basis as they face the daily challenges of supporting someone with a disability. Professionals and carers can often become overwhelmed with these ongoing losses. This course provides you with an opportunity to step back and develop proactive skills in dealing with this specialised loss more constructively. Life continues to ‘fall short ‘as ongoing losses are realised.
The grief responses of children and adults with a disability will be presented and practical strategies of how to address these issues will be discussed. Practical steps of working with ‘non-finite grief” – a psychoeducational approach by Schutz (2005) will be applied. A model that outlines the events and losses involved over a life span will be presented which helps you to work more proactively with anticipated losses.
You will have an opportunity to develop communication processes that prepare clients for anticipated losses such as the transition from home into supported accommodation or from moving from a stroller into a wheelchair.
Learning Outcomes:
- Understand the implications of “non-finite” grief
- Identify grief and loss from a developmental perspective
- Describe the numerous ongoing loses from a life span approach
- Explore ways of preparing clients constructively to anticipated losses
- Identify support strategies for carers and staff who are burned out with these ongoing losses
Cultural and Spiritual Needs in Loss and Grief
Course Outline:
Learn about the cultural and spiritual needs of people experiencing loss.
Course Content:
Loss, and in particular death, is viewed by different cultures in different ways. This course provides you with an opportunity to develop sensitivity and respect to the beliefs and practices of different cultures in relation to loss and change.
Develop your knowledge on the major religious traditions and ritual concerning death and dying. Australia’s response to the Bali bombing and the Victorian bushfires and the national sorry day are reviewed. Learn about the importance of public rituals that allow people to process their loss.
Becoming more aware of cultural and spiritual diversity can provide us with an insight that there is a unexpectedly common strand of within that diversity. Having an informed multi faith and atheist approach in our practice can open up more personalised and significant support for the client who is experiencing loss.
Rituals and end of life practices are reviewed and are identified that can facilitate the grieving process. Emphasis on finding out ways of understanding indigenous loss experiences will be explored.
Near death experiences, cultural interpretations and its changing impact on individuals will be discussed. This course will give you an opportunity to be more proactive and informed when you work with your clients and their community during the time of significant loss.
Learning Outcomes:
- Identify the existential needs of people experiencing significant loss
- Recognise the signs for the need for spiritual support
- Learn about different religions and their approach to death and dying
- Experience and recognise the common thread of ‘being mindful’ when supporting a client’s spiritual journey
Other courses
How Good is your Therapeutic Effectiveness? Strategies for Optimizing Outcomes within a Range of Current Approaches
Loss and Grief Work with Adults
“Grief has no rules, mourn your own way” was the theme of Grief Week in 2013. What does this mean and how do we support people who are grieving when our understanding of loss and grief has changed much over the last 30 years? This workshop will provide you with a general understanding and skills involved in supporting people through loss, grief and bereavement. Multiple types of losses will be discussed such as the physical, social, psychological, spiritual and community losses.
Suicide and Self-harm Prevention
This course will equip you with the skills to respond constructively to a client’s cry for help when they are contemplating suicide and how to support people affected by the loss of suicide. It is an interactive workshop offering theoretical and practical information on suicide prevention and post-vention. It will answer the questions: “What do I do if someone is suicidal?” and “How do you help someone who is self-harming?”. The internationally renowned suicide intervention model- ASIST- will be applied.
Working Through Grief Mindfully and with Self Compassion
Building Resilience in the Face of Change
“The challenge of mindfulness is to work with the very circumstances that you find yourself in – no matter how unpleasant, how discouraging, how limited, how unending and stuck they may appear to be – and to make sure that you have done everything in your power to use their energies to transform yourself before you decide to cut your loses and move on. It is right here that the real work needs to happen……Right in that moment , you touch the core of your being and invite mindfulness to enter and heal.’’
J. Kabat–Zinn (p.199)