Deep Dive into Grief and Bereavement

Deep Dive into Grief and Bereavement

Australian allied health clinicians play an active role in the physical, social, and psycho‑spiritual care of palliative care patients and carers. The Palliative Care Australia Service Delivery Guidelines acknowledge the role of primary and community health care providers in meeting the needs of people living with a life‑limiting illness. One of the roles is providing a wide range of psychological support, social support, pastoral care, and bereavement support.

Capital Health Network is pleased to invite health care professionals working in primary and community health care to this exclusive one‑day Grief and Bereavement Workshop! We will be joined by Sonia Fenwick from Canberra Grief Centre to dive into grief and bereavement for palliative care/end‑of‑life care.

Speaker Details:
Sonia is the Director and owner of Canberra Grief Centre. She is a Level 4 registered clinical counsellor with the Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia and an internationally certified thanatologist (study of death, dying and bereavement) with the Association of Death Education Counselling. Sonia has over 20 years’ experience working in various settings related to death, dying, grief, bereavement, and associated trauma, including palliative care and coronial counselling.

Topic: Deep Dive into Grief and Loss in the Palliative Context

Session 1 – Loss and Grief Pre‑Death (morning session)

1. Role of attachment in grief
2. Loss as a threat
3. The landscape of loss and grief, including characteristics and what shapes a person's grief
4. Anticipatory mourning, including death anxiety/denial and the role of hope
5. Liminality, transition, change, and the role of movement, time and space

Session 2 – Loss and Grief Post‑Death: Bereavement (afternoon session)

1. Ingredients for healthy bereavement and ways to enable this in the client
2. Acute grief: what happens in this space, holding space
3. Role of acceptance
4. Meaning making