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Workshops
are on Friday October 28th only
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SESSION
A  9:00
- 10:30 a.m. |
|
Bill
Allan
|
1.
Starting a Grief & Bereavement Peer Mentoring
Organization in your Community
This
workshop will provide guidelines in the planning,
process and progress to establishing a grief
& bereavement peer mentoring organization
in their own community. The information offered
will be based on the best practices of the Bereaved
Families of Ontario Provincial Board, the experience
of previous flourishing Affiliate start-ups,
and the "how to help it fail" path.
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|
Dr.
Lori Gray
Ph.D., C. Psych
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2.
The Impact of Grief and Loss in the Workplace
Most of us spend a significant portion of our
lives at the office, often surrounded by people
with whom we've worked with for years. In many
work environments, co-workers can feel like
an extended family of sorts, celebrating birthdays,
weddings, births and promotions together and
bonding over office politics or last night's
hockey game. In fact, managers hope for teams
who are not only talented and efficient but
who can also work closely and affably together.
So it's no surprise that when an employee dies
or suffers a deep personal loss, the effect
on the workplace can be profound.
This
interactive workshop will explore the impact
of loss and grief in the workplace and what
professionals can do to support and guide individuals
(employees and managers alike) through these
experiences.
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|
Rena
Arshinoff
|
3.
Helping Bereaved Children to Reconstruct Their
Deceased
Among
the tasks of mourning that bereaved children
must achieve are the acceptance of the reality
of their loss, feeling their pain, remembering
the person who died, and finding a new self
identity without that individual. In order to
achieve such difficult challenges, children
need assistance in reconstructing the deceased.
This ongoing cognitive process changes as the
child matures and helps him/her to make sense
of the loss as well as to ensure that the death
becomes a component of the child's reality.
Moreover, reconstructing the deceased helps
to minimize denial and to reinforce for the
bereaved child the value of the person who is
no longer a part of his/her life.
This session offers both theoretical background
and practical activities to help bereaved children
reconstruct their deceased as they remember,
memorialize, and maintain a relationship with
their lost loved one.
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|
Catherine
Buffa
|
4.
Coping with Compassion Fatigue & Burnout
with Holistic Self-Care
Compassion
fatigue and burnout are realities that accompany
working within the grief and bereavement industry
and it is vital that those who find themselves
providing care to those who are grieved be equipped
with coping techniques to help them positively
move forward. This workshop will focus on examining
the concept of and risk factors that contribute
compassion fatigue and consequently burnout.
Then a holistic conceptualization of a person
as a biological, psychological, social, and
spiritual being will be presented to conceptualize
the effects of compassion fatigue. With this
conceptualization of compassion fatigue and
burnout the workshop will explore self care
as the ultimate tool to combat the effects of
compassion fatigue and possibly burnout.
Self care will be explored through this aforementioned
holistic model of self, where participants will
have the ability to create their own personalized
and fluid model of self-care that will serve
as their personal compass to caring for themselves.
In this portion of the workshop two practical
tools will be explore in the topic of self care
and they include: developing personal risk factors
and indicators for burnout and the use of guided
imagery to cope with psychological symptoms
of compassion fatigue.
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SESSION
B 10:45
a.m. - 12:15 p.m.
|
|
Spencer
Brennan
|
1.
Boundaries
Understanding
and maintaining one's boundaries is one of the
most difficult tasks facing many peer groups,
especially facilitators. This session will examine
the four types of boundaries, with examples
of how to handle each type. Facilitators will
be challenged to examine their assumptions about
their and their group's role in maintaining
boundaries and how to be aware of and overcome
the pitfalls of being "nice." This
workshop will provide both members and facilitators
some common language and helpful tools to explain,
challenge and deal with situations which can
lead to the embarrassment and withdrawal of
participants precisely at a point where support
is most needed.
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|
Maureen
Pollard
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2.
The Importance of Creating Memories When a Baby
Dies
When
perinatal loss occurs through miscarriage, ectopic
pregnancy, medical termination, stillbirth or
neonatal death, it is critically important to
recognize the short but very important life
of the child who has died. Unlike most other
losses, bereaved parents and family members
whose baby has died before, during or shortly
after birth have few memories of their child.
This can contribute to complications of the
grief experience and increased suffering for
bereaved parents.
This
workshop will explore the importance of acknowledging
the love and bond that bereaved parents share
with their baby even when that child will not
return home with them. A brief presentation
and discussion of the many items that can be
used or created to memorialize infants will
be followed by hands-on activity to explore
the practice of sensitive photography techniques
and mold casting to create important keepsakes
for bereaved parents.
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|
Dr.
Brenda Marshall
|
3.
Adult Sibling Loss - The Forgotten Grievers
The
death of a sibling in adulthood is rarely recognized
as a significant loss. Typically, concern is
first directed toward the grieving spouse and
children and then the deceased´s parents.
Adult siblings, are seen as less central to
the grieving process and are often expected
to be a source of strength and support for other
family members. In reality, many siblings suffer
terribly at the loss of such an important person
in their lives. Considered an "out of order"
loss, the death of a sibling represents the
end of what likely would have been their longest
lasting relationship in life.
The presentation highlights the experiences
of 4 adults who lost their siblings in adulthood
and some of the unique challenges they faced
learning to integrate this loss into their lives.
We'll also explore how family dynamics are shifted
and ways those in the helping professions can
better support a grieving sibling.
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| Ida
Bevilacqua |
4.
Companioning Families through the Option of
Organ & Tissue Donation
Speaking
to families during the time of a crisis of their
loved one is a difficult task for anyone. Many
assume families are too grief stricken to talk
or discuss end of life care options or next
steps. Many times, families wish health care
or support providers would bring up options
or discussions to companion them during their
difficult journey. Many times we as support
staff feel uncomfortable ourselves talking about
death but reality is anyone who is asked to
possibly save the life of others in any culture
or religion would consider the opportunity of
organ and tissue donation.
Connecting a family to the information and/or
a coordinator for organ and tissue donation
allows the family to honor a loved one's wishes
if registered through the health card registry
or donor card. It allows a family to honor and
leave the legacy of a loved one as the giving
person they were and to be remembered by. Every
three days one person dies waiting for an organ
transplant but thanks to many donor families
decision to save lives, it enables those waiting
for a transplant to have a second chance at
life. Remember your conversations with families
give comfort to those grieving and hope to those
waiting.
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SESSION
C 1:30
- 3:00 p.m.
|
| Spencer
Brennan |
1.
Keeping Your Group on Track
This
workshop will look at the eight challenges that
peer support groups face in maintaining an effective
group. The session will help: understand the
stages of a group's development, explore key
questions for group success, learn methods to
share responsibilities, deal with difficult
situations and exchange tips for maintaining
momentum and morale.
|
| Sarah
Henderson |
2.
Open
Doors: Supporting Bereaved Youth
Those of us who work with grieving youth are
often challenged by some of the behaviours young
people use to cope with loss. We may feel frustrated
by the resistance we encounter and inadequate
in finding the words or actions that might grant
us their permission to 'stay' involved.
This
workshop will explore the impact of grief on
youth, especially as it relates to aspects that
can further complicate their capacity to mourn,
including the experience of multiple loss, conflicted
relationships and disenfranchised grief (Doka,
1989). We will also discuss various support
strategies that youth have reported as "helpful",
including the benefit of activity based interventions,
group support and psychoed/peer support based
training initiatives.
|
| Stacey
Cohen |
3.
Journeying Through Our Own Loss as the Passageway
to Guiding Others
Often
the desire to help others is motivated by going
through a painful experience of our own. Those
who have sunk to the depths of darkness and
ascended back into the light have an excellent
vantage point for guiding others through a similar
experience. Blocks and obstacles occur when
those acting as guides have denied parts of
their own pain and have unresolved grief. This
workshop is for those training volunteers to
do bereavement work, and anyone working with
the bereaved.
The material includes information for working
with bereaved children, their parents, and grieving
adults. The workshop format can also be used
as a training program for volunteers. It incorporates
information regarding children's concept of
death at different ages, stages of grief, and
examples of innovative techniques for working
with children, and adults at various ages and
stages of grief. The highlight of the workshop
is the experiential exercises in which participants
partake to get in touch with any unresolved
feelings of loss, and then work with these feelings
so they will be clearer and more conscious in
helping others. Also provided is a format for
on-going peer group support meetings for volunteers
as they begin performing bereavement responsibilities.
|
| Stephen
Hudecki |
4.
Sound, Spirituality and Transformation
This
experiential workshop (based on a case study)
will offer participants an opportunity to hear
the blending of spiritual care with psychotherapy
and sound therapy for an inpatient and outpatient
from an Acute Psychiatric ward. Sound instruments
will be used that had profound affects for the
patient and helped her to process her seemingly
endless grieving of the 8 year loss of her 21
year old son at a deeper level. Workshop participants
are invited to experience the "sounding".
The application of a multi-interventional approach
will be illustrated and discussed in an informal,
dialogue-structured workshop. |
