Offering compassionate bereavement support

good afternoon everybody i'm going to get started my name is casey jacobs and i've been
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hosting our cipd coronavirus series of webinars and this afternoon we are addressing an
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incredibly important topic but one that is sometimes not that easy to talk about
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employers role in offering compassionate bereavement support with the uk recently reaching the grim
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milestone of a hundred thousand covert related deaths it's highly likely that members of your workforce will have
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been affected in some way by the virus they'll be experiencing bereavement grief
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and loss employ employer compassion and support is so vital joining me this afternoon to
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discuss this topic and to take your questions a panel of experts i'm joined by claire
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mccartney claire is senior polisher advisor for resourcing and inclusion at the cipd
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joined also by kirsty hunt external training and consultancy manager at cruz bereavement care and last but
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not least lucy heard bereavement rights campaigner and certified grief recovery specialist
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thank you all for joining us today um as ever let me just run through the housekeeping quickly
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this session is being recorded you will be able to access it afterwards the slides will also be available to
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download you'll be able to find them on the cipd website to submit your questions and please do
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can i ask you to use the q a tab which you should be able to see at the bottom of your screen please use the q a tab to ask any
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questions that you want to put to the panel but use the chat function if you want to make any kind of general comments or to
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connect and share with each other um it's always really great to see people connecting on here if you are using the chat function and
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you want to talk to the other attendees and you need to set it to all panelists and attendees otherwise it
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will just be seen by the panel remember that the cipd coronavirus hub is there as a resource
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and we're adding things to it all the time and remember that for legal advice cipd members can call our hr inform
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helpline which is available 24 7 and using that gets you an individual response and
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also i want to flag and it's really really pertinent giving topic this afternoon our well-being helpline
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for our members in the uk and ireland working with we're now providing cipd
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members with free help and support via sessions with qualified therapists which you can access either online or
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over the phone health assured have also launched a new app which cipd members are able to access
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it's called the my healthy advantage app and it provides an enhanced set of well-being tools which
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are designed to improve your mental and physical health you can access that anytime and anywhere
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details about all of these offers are on your screen now if you do need to talk to somebody please do remember that this
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resource is available for you and it is free so on to the topic
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talking about death at all can be challenging for people and doing so in the workplace even more so but the impact of the pandemic
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where employees may have lost family members friends or co-workers means employers must step up in
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supporting bereaved colleagues bereavement is also shocking but the context with people just unable to
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grieve together means the implication for mental health might be even greater
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research from the cipd has found that just over half of employees said they were aware of their employer
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having a policy or support in place for employees experiencing bereavement
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we all experience bereavement and grief in different ways in this session claire kirsty and lucy
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going to explore how employers and hr can best and most compassionately support their workforces
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at this challenging time we're going to hear from claire first and then kirsty and then lucy and then
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we'll have time for questions but please do put your questions in any time they come into your head but we will pick them up after the
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presentations so that's it for me for now i'm going to hand over to claire to get us started thanks claire
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brilliant thank you very much katie and good afternoon everyone um we know that in non-covered times at any
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time one in ten employees are likely to be affected by a bereavement and as katie says our research shows
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that almost half of employees say that they're not actually aware of their employer
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having a policy or support in place for employees experiencing bereavement so i think this underlines the need for
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greater employer action and support in this area and we also um would like greater
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support from the government as well we're going to be um talking a little bit about that as well
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so at the cipd we've produced compassionate bereavement guidance for organizations and also for line managers
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to help support employees often at one of the most difficult times of their
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lives so i'm going to take you through our practical guidance and things that you can do to properly
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support your employees and your colleagues um but if we just move on to the next side just a little
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bit of context so and katie's touched upon this but you know it's not always easy to talk about death and bereavement
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it's something that we don't discuss enough in society and certainly not in the workplace
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and quite often people think that this should be dealt with privately but actually death is an inevitable part
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a normal part of life and it's something which all of us have to face at some point in our lives so if we can
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have open and honest conversations about death and bereavement um the better prepared and placed we will be
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to deal with this so just moving on i'm going to just say a little bit about the impact of the pandemic sadly we know as
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katie said as well um you know over a hundred thousand people have
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um died as a result of the pandemic and employees will have lost family members partners
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and friends and even co-workers and much of this loss will be unexpected and shocking many people
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would have been unable to have final conversations with loved ones before death either in hospitals or care homes or
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indeed at funerals because we know attendance has been severely restricted and depending on when the bereavement
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has happened grieving employees might also be having to deal with a number of kobit 19 related issues in their life
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such as being furloughed and being made redundant or you know indeed having to work
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long hours because they're on the front line and doing essential work and all of this could exasperate
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employees grief symptoms which may heighten the need for psychological and emotional support such
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as counselling and therapy to help them to come to terms with what they've been experiencing
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and it's also worth emphasizing that there's been a lot of non-covered 19 deaths that have happened because of the
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crisis and these are likely to have been equally traumatic so no matter the cause it's vital that
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employers work to provide employees with the support that they need both in the short but also quite
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often in the longer term as well so if we move on
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we know that most organizations provide three to five days paid leave for bereaved employees but
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there are a lot of organizations that don't provide um paid leave and there are very few legal provisions in this
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area so um jack's law the legal rights are paid bereavemently for working parents who
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lose a child under the age of 18 was introduced in april of last year after
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many years of campaigning and hard work by lucy head who we are delighted that we have on the webinar with us today and a number of
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other charities and organizations and aside from jack's law there's no legal requirement for employers to pay
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employees who take leave following the death of a close family member so at the cipd um in partnership with
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lucy hurd and with other organizations such as cruz bereavement we've been calling on the government to introduce
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the right to bereavement leave and pay to all employees experiencing a close
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family bereavement we know that bereavement can have a significant impact on a person and their work and
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it's vital that employees are supposed supported with appropriate time off at what is already
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um an extremely difficult time we know that bereaved employees are highly unlikely
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to be able to perform well at work if they're forced to return too quickly
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so if we move on i'd like to now draw upon our employer and our line manager
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compassionate bereavement support guidance to talk about the ways in which organizations can effectively support
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bereaved employees and i'd like to say a huge thank you to all of the expert organizations who fed into this for us
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including lucy hurd including cruz bereavement a cast mind and many more
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um so let's let's move on to take a look at some of the things organizations can do
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um around compassionate bereavement support in the workplace so first of all it's really helpful to
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develop a bereavement policy which outlines your organization's approach to bereavement
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support and a policy could include amongst other things um your um reporting a bereavement
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your policies around belief bereavement leave and pay and also return to work options and
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linking to supportive services and resources your policy should provide support for
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and guidance for employees who have been bereaved and also for the death of an employee
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and it's important to involve um where relevant trade unions or staff representatives in developing a
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bereavement policy because often they're likely to have some really good ideas about what support
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is likely to be most helpful and how this can be communicated to employees it's also important that that
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policy is communicated widely and linked to broader sources of support such as
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line manager education so the second area i wanted to highlight is around
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building open supportive cultures so really important to train your line managers to have open
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and sensitive conversations and to explore what extra support would be helpful to
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affected employees it's important to understand that grief isn't linear
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it doesn't have predicted stages and i'm sure we're going to be hearing more about that and employees will react differently to
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their experiences of bereavement it's also important to say that different cultures respond
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to death in significantly different ways and so line managers should check whether the employee's religion or their
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culture requires them to observe any particular practices or make special arrangements
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the third area is around acknowledging the bereavement and this is so important
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the individual that's been bereaved may or may not want to talk about the situation in detail but acknowledging
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that it's happened is really really important and it's also important to ask an employee how they'd
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like to stay in contact with you and maintain regular but not intrusive contact with them while
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they're away from work and really important also to discuss
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with them what they would like communicated and by law an employee has the right to keep
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their bereavement private from their work colleagues so it's really important to ask your employees what if anything they'd like
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um their work colleagues to know about the bereavement and who they would like um to communicate
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that flexibility is key um and each person
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will experience bereavement in different ways and will need potentially different responses and support from their organization
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so it's important that uh to ensure that people managers speak supportively to their bereav team members to discuss
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when they feel they'll be able to return to work and whether they'd prefer to come back to working their usual hours
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or potentially a phased return and also to talk potentially about flexible working as well it might also be helpful to discuss
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whether a temporary change of duties might be needed i think it's also important to say that
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managers should be open to flexible working beyond that initial return to work phase and that they should also
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be sensitive to requests for time off especially around anniversaries or other special events
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and then the final area i wanted to flag was around signposting to supportive services organizations and charities and we're
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really um delighted to be joined by two such organizations on this webinar today um
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some larger organizations may well have access to counselling occupational health employee
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assistance programs and if they do they should highlight these to those experiencing bereavement but
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they should also signpost to relevant organizations and charities that can support bereaved employees and these
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will be particularly important for smaller organizations with perhaps more limited resources
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and we have a full list of organizations that can help you in relation to bereavement
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included in our guidance so please do take a look at that if you find that helpful
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so i'm just going to go on now to say a little bit about what to do when a member of staff
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dies so we know that um
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experiencing the death of a staff member or co-worker can be distressing and can affect other employees in the
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workplace in general so you need to make sure that you're supporting your workforce
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but also other employees and the workplace in general
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you need to support your workforce and you you also need to find out um confirm with the next of kin
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when and the extent of the details um that may be shared with the wider team
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and acas provides some really helpful guidance around this which we've drawn upon from
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our guide from our employer and our line manager guidance i would encourage you to take a look at
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the acas guidance as well so some of the things to do in terms of practical steps
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so let people at work know that the person has died in an empathetic way offer support to those that have been
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affected by the death offer condolences to the person's family
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or next of kin share with staff how they can give their condolences as well
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and provide details of the funeral or ceremony if staff have been invited to that
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in terms of offering support talk to staff about how you can provide ongoing support to those that have been
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affected by the death encourage line managers to have regular catch-ups with those affected
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to see how they're coping and whether they need any further support also i think it's important to say make
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sure that line managers themselves are also offered support if they've been affected by the
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bereavement and if employees do need further support as we said do point to your organization's health
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and well-being services and resources excuse me just take some
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water so do you do point to your
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organization's well-being services if you offer them and to external organizations of support
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it might be appropriate to honor the person who has died for example you might
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consider creating a book of condolence for staff to share their memories of the person who's died
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commissioning a memorial you might want to hold an event to honour the person who's died inviting
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the family or next of kin if it's appropriate um you also might want to organize a fundraising event
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perhaps in support of a particular charity associated with the person that
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has died and if there is media interest in the death this could be
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um incredibly distressing for the person bereaved so it's important to acknowledge and
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support them you might also need to identify a spokesperson if applicable
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prepare a statement and plan how confidentiality will be dealt with
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and then in terms of finalizing an employee's affairs hr or senior managers should contact the
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family or next of kin of the person who has died to answer any questions they may have in
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a sensitive and empathetic manner about their pay
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their pension other benefits such as life insurance um and also returning any personal
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belongings and family members or next of kin may wish to pick up any of their belongings in person or
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they may prefer that these are sent to them but it's really important to say whatever the preference make sure
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that the way that you return personal belongings shows true care for the deceased and their family and the
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next of kin so you should also take any necessary
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steps concerning data relating to the disease such as removing information such as email addresses
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details on databases and circulation lists and informing key contacts about the
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tech the death as well so i'm just going to move on by flagging
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um a really important event that's coming up which is a national day of reflection on
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the 23rd of march which is being led by mary curie and it's certainly um something that the cipd are
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supporting so if we move on to look a bit more at the detail of this this gives an opportunity to come
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together as a nation to show support for everyone who's been bereaved and to celebrate the lives of all those
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who died um and marie curie will be holding online talks and conversations
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and also giving advice on how you can support your colleagues who've been bereaved so i think this is a this would be a
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really helpful thing um to to support in order to get those conversations happening
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um around um death and bereavement so do support this um if you're able to and i'm just gonna
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um finally finish off by sharing some of the excellent organizations services
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charities available out there um for you to get support from in terms
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of bereavement and as i said there's a fuller list in our practical guidance so
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do take a look at that and make use of that if that's helpful to you so i'm going to hand back over to katie
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now thank you thank you very much claire and just to note those slides will be available and i think they're hyperlinked so you'll be
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able to um to click on all of those resources and it will take you directly there um just a note to say um if you do want
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to ask a question could you put it in the q a rather than the chat i can see some people bring it in the chat and it just tends to get a little bit lost
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so if you can put it in the q a that means we'll definitely come to it um i'd like to hand over to kirsty now who's going to talk in a little bit more
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detail about bereavement and the workplace over to you kirsty hello good afternoon everybody and thank
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you for the opportunity to talk i do apologize my lights are flickering so if you do see that in the background
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it's at my end um picking up very much on a lot of what claire has said but i'm also introducing
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myself i'm i look after our external training consultancy work at cruz um i suspect quite a lot of people have
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probably not heard of cruz uh before it's not a surprise um but also give you a little bit of
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background of who we are and then talk about some of the things that line very nicely with what claire was
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was just mentioning next come next slide please
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thank you um cruise movement care we we were established over 60 years ago as
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a charity originally in south west london but now across the most of the uk but not scotland come
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to that in a second we as a charity offer support advice and information
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to anybody who has been bereaved we're there to support people when somebody has died um all our support is
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free we are a registered charity in england wales and northern ireland we have a sister charity in scotland so if
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anybody here is north of the border cruise movement care scotland do a fantastic job
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up in that part of the country in a very similar way all of our sports delivered by trained volunteers they are fantastically
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trained they spend it's they're an amazing amount of people who deal with some of the most tricky
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conversations some of the most difficult and traumatic situations um and as you can see at the last point we
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are currently supporting families impacted by manchester arena bombing at the inquest that's going on there and we were
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heavily involved at grenfell tower but we will support people from
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any cause of death so we support people who have had um from cancer
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heart attacks but of course a lot of support for people tragically breathed from the coronavirus
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pandemic so what else do i need to say how do we do
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that i'll come to that very quickly at the moment we've transitioned all of our services to telephone as you
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can imagine and the best way in is via our helpline and the number is later on and it's certainly very available on our
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website where people will have initial call and if needed be supported
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and passed on for one-to-one support through a match with a volunteer
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there's a lot not everybody needs that though and it's really important to give the right support for the right people
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at the right time and in the right way so whether that is in one-to-one sessions on the phone or
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in groups or via web chat we're trying to work hard to make sure that support is available in the way that people want to
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access it but what i do want to say is a little bit about grief
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and loss and bereavement thank you next slide so it's a few
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truths and a few there's a lot of myths and as claire said it's something people don't talk about as a society
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so we really understand we want to make sure that if you take one thing away from today is that everybody's experience of grief
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is different you may have heard people talk about stages of grief and
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the grief curve and as hr people i'm sure you're very familiar with kubler-ross and the change curve
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we feel at cruz that that's not the best model for grief we feel grief is much more like that picture of the scribble we want it to go
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nice and neatly from a to b but the reality of it is it's a complete
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swirl a mix and muddle and mess and that's how that's the emotional response because
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that's what grief is it's the emotional response to a death it's really important to make
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sure that everyone says it's not an illness it's not a disorder it's not a mental health condition
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it is the flip side of having had a deep relationship with somebody it's flip
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side to grief we quite often say within within crews but in itself it's a natural process
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it is a natural part of of loving somebody in a natural response to somebody dying
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um what i really want to make sure and what we're seeing quite a lot is there isn't a hierarchy degree of no
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one death no one bereavement is any better worse more deserving than any
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others and i think this is really important to say at the moment with the pandemic and it's utterly heartbreaking for every
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family who've lost somebody but alongside that we've also had the deaths all the normal
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normal deaths the other deaths that happened as well as the other ones that were touched on as well the
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the ones that happened because people weren't able to get treatment but we have had all the more usual deaths running alongside it
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so actually those people are bereaved and haven't had funerals as well and we did some we
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did some working out that about six million people haven't been able to attend a funeral and say goodbye
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in the course of these last few months in the way when then those will be people who've been impacted by copa but it will also be
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people who cancer heart attacks other progressive
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illnesses and they are all equally deserving of support they're equally deserving
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um cases and they're all equally tragic for every single family there's also no time frame
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to grief people will deal with this things in different ways it will ebb it will flow at cruz in the early stages
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of the pandemic we had quite a few people contacting us because the talk of death and dying and how it
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was all in the news actually had triggered historic bereavements back from 20 30 years ago that they thought they
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dealt with and it was bubbling things up or they hadn't dealt with this can absolutely
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you know this is this this is what grief is like it will cover and some people might think they're all right and something
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will bob up and trigger and it's being able to respond and support at that time that is really important and valuable um but we all
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grieve differently we all some people will agree really loudly and be really vocal and really
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emotional and that's that's their style other people may be much more internal
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and take and be much more personal about it that's fine there is no right or wrong way to grieve how you
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grieve is how you grieve and that will be linked to so many factors
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it will be linked to it will also be linked to current concurrent stresses what else is going on in your
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life so we see that quite a lot that maybe people have multiple bereavements and
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it's that cumulative effect and multiple reasons it means that one one is just also too much to bear
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we see there's so many patterns and it's the whole thing about just don't assume and and that everything is
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whatever everything feels is equally bad and very normal um kind of next slide please
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here's just some of the impacts these are things we hear people talk about a lot on our helpline and as you'll see when
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you look at the slide quite a lot of these are going to have an impact on how people will perform in the workplace some might be short-term
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others might be for longer so certainly in the early days people will feel numb and shocked
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they could well feel angry definitely feel helpless but depending on the cause of death
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there could be guilt if only i had or fear for themselves and anxiety and i
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think a lot of those will feel be very easy to understand why somebody might feel those things
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but people are often very surprised about the physical stuff that goes along with grief there are can be real
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physical impacts on people lack of energy sleep um
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tightness all of those things people actually can ache uh stomach issues all sorts of things
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that can be all tied up linked to a bereavement and those of course are going to take have an impact
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depending on how long they last um yeah processing this information
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um lack of concentration i mean some of us are feeling this anyway from the whole consequence of isolation and lockdown
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and things like that but these are very very very commonly reported by people following
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agreement and you know certainly that's going to impact on how you perform in the workplace people might not be firing on firing on
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not won't be firing on all cylinders for one to a better phrase and then looking at the behaviors if you're
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sleeping badly of course that's going to have an impact if you you're not eating well
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if you're not you know all of these things can impact on how you can do your job
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in the day in the day so could we have next side please i
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thought it might be helpful to share the sort of things we hear all the time in our phone calls and
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face to face again as an employer thinking about how you might be able to
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respond to these if your staff member or colleague said this to you as a line manager or
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even yeah as an hr role or just as a as a colleague it's very
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common to this whole i feel like i'm going mad i can't eat i can't sleep
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these are all really normal things and i think if there's one thing as employers or just as people in
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general you can do is trying to make people understand this
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is they are not going mad this is grief this is normal this is understandable
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this is a factor of the fact they've lost somebody very very close to them it's about trying to
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reassure them that this is this is what it's like
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then help them take steps to support to move onwards with with what comes next
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in their lives but normalizing grief is a big part of what we
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within crews are trying to do and trying to get these conversations started with the wider with the wider community
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and societies large and as you can see all these comments go for any age any stage any type of person
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so thinking about how you might say and support some of these people
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um i'm just going to sort of echo a little bit of what claire said if i could have the next slide
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please just a few top tips to take away as claire said earlier
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don't ignore the death acknowledge it offer your condolences be human about it um
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make sure she said that everybody knows what support's available great we touched on diversity um religious
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beliefs et cetera et cetera yeah know your workforce know your your mix if you need to go and
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find out about the rights in muslim faith or hindu or whatever probably a good idea
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to do that and be be ready certainly the contact point was
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picked up by claire um now returning to work of course
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depending on who has died this could be an enormous bombshell within the family
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somebody might have to take on soul parenting responsibilities somebody might be happy to care for an older relative all of a sudden
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that needs to be factored in that needs to be factored into the support and the returning to work and somebody being
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able any adjustments that might be made to deal with that um
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one thing that often doesn't get thought of is considering the other members in the team um if you're the line manager or the hr
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person and somebody's going to take significant time off how might that impact on those staff members
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who are covering or holding the thought or whatever however you put it also
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they might have known the person that died if somebody's partner died they may be socially you know linked to
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to the person that's died so don't dismiss that um and of course if it's a member of
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your own team that has died of course that's got again wider wider ripples
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um and a really easy easy one is to make a note in your diary if
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you're the manager of some of those special dates the anniversary of the death any
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birthdays and depending on how the person died there may be key dates around coroners
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and inquests and things like that be aware have them on your radar um that's when
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the person might need a little bit of a check-in or touch touching base perhaps even plan
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to take leave around certain key dates have a conversation with them and just
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just factor them in um yeah and for some people
32:46
especially now especially as we're in such strange times some people might just get get on with
32:53
getting on and that the but the impact of the agreement may not happen until especially my life returns to some
33:00
semblance of what we were used to just just have that
33:06
one in the back of mind that something might be all right now doesn't mean to say when things change again
33:11
that something may bubble up and take it have an impact sorry about my
33:16
lights um can i have the final slide please crew so just so you know how you can
33:24
access our support so it's free it's non-faith um best way in is to talk to somebody on
33:31
our helpline which the number is there but i would also say there's an awful lot of information on our website
33:38
and sometimes reading some stuff could just be really really what people need in that moment and of
33:44
course it's there anytime day or night hope again is our dedicated charity for children and young people
33:52
we now have cruise chat which is web chat again some people find that really the better way for them
33:57
to access support and we can offer one-to-one support group support as well
34:03
currently obviously all on the phone or possibly on zoom and we also do a lot of training work
34:09
that's my part of the organization we have since well we've always done it we've always done
34:15
external training to any organization who wanted to know more and we go into a lot more depth
34:20
than i have done here um we've moved that all to webinars and we've
34:25
we've delivered i think 550 webinars since first of april to a massive range of organizations public sector private
34:33
sector nhs charities etc we want to get the message
34:38
out there to help you get better at supporting your people so that's your managers one area we have
34:46
trained is mental health first aiders interesting somersault question flick up um as a to give them some skills as well to
34:54
be part of these conversations so that's all from me for now thank you
34:59
for that kirstie that's great i can see some comments in the in the chat that people have used the services personally and found them
35:04
incredibly useful um there's some great questions coming in including those on a few about mental health birthdays and
35:11
we'll come to those after we've heard from lucy so lucy over to you
35:16
thank you thank you kirsten and claire um so i'm lucy heard and i am a bereavement
35:22
rights campaigner as claire mentioned earlier on i was the i suppose the person that started out
35:28
um campaigning for jack's law it was never about calling it jack's law at that point it was um just i wanted to create
35:34
better bereavement support within the workplace um i went through my own experiences of
35:40
uh discovery there was no law to support people who had experienced a bereavement and i felt
35:47
that was an injust hence my 10 years of campaigning to try and make um employees better protected within the
35:54
workplace um let's have the next slide please
36:00
so as i said briefly in the workplace there are a few parts of what i want to talk to you
36:06
about a little bit more about the campaigning support and becoming a grief first aider
36:11
um could i have the next slide please there's a company for jack's law it was
36:17
parental bereavement leave um has came into power last year in april
36:22
and that is for parents who have had a child or baby die under the age of 18 this does include stillbirth and there's
36:28
two weeks paid leave to be taken within 52 weeks um i strongly believe
36:33
that all bereavement should be included into jack's law hence why um i've been working the cipd to try and
36:40
get jack's law amended to include all family bereavement and i hope that would include immediate family members to take
36:47
time off to grieve a loved one i don't think three days is enough time to grieve a loved one a few things that
36:52
kirsty was saying within cruz grief isn't linear it comes and goes um you have inquest you have all the
37:00
other practical administrative things that you might need to sort out and you can't do that in three days
37:06
funerals can take up to 10 days to organize um so three days is not sufficient enough
37:12
at all and then hopefully also offering the two weeks paid leave
37:18
um so yes so that's the ultimate goal really is to include and amend um jack's law to
37:24
include all family bereavement so that anybody that is being believed in the workplace can take
37:29
some time off to grieve a loved one i have the next slide please
37:36
so but a briefed employee slash that could be a colleague i suppose um ensuring
37:43
quite a lot of these stories look quite a lot of these things being covered by everybody but i will just put my pennies worth in
37:49
i'm ensuring a back to work plan is in place i think that's very important to have that in place be proactive rather
37:55
than reactive and ensure that something's there to help your employee come back into the
38:01
workplace um and yes and so whether you
38:08
um have discussed this beforehand um with hr or whether this is something
38:14
that you discuss with the employers at the same time they have to be coinciding with each other
38:19
signpost support um really important someone coming back to work might not necessarily know where to go hence
38:25
having a breachment policy in place um is of the utmost importance so again like i said being proactive rather than
38:32
reactive having someone walk through the the laws of the office and not knowing what to do um can give
38:39
mixed emotions mixed messages to that person that has been breathed and so having something in place
38:44
beforehand and it's probably the most important thing to have have done
38:50
um i devised something called a just a moment card this is primarily uh for employees to their house if
38:57
you're sat in a meeting there's nothing worse than having to ask to leave a room whereas if you could just put down a card in your desk
39:04
um you're not having to explain the reason that you're actually having a breakdown because you're missing your loved one so much
39:09
um questions can be hard when people look at you all the time so putting a little sort of a tool on
39:15
your desk um because you just need to take a moment and not having to explain to the whole of the team
39:21
and all your colleagues that you've become overwhelmed with the sadness of grief
39:27
remembering birthdays and anniversaries i think we've all touched on this point it is one of the most important things
39:34
for me is to remembering birthdays and anniversary so whether you have this within your um hr team or whether this is a lie
39:42
manager saying that they have a little note somewhere that there might be a birthday coming up of loved one that's died
39:47
whether that be an employee or a colleague and anniversaries as well of the actual day that they did
39:54
die one of the other things um that is available is a something called grief and a cupper
40:00
which is a community support group which you can have within your office and this offers
40:05
a safe place for anyone that has been bereaved within your workplace a time to speak and reflect
40:11
about a loved one but it's also quite a good space for somebody that may be supporting a friend or a colleague that might be
40:18
briefed um for more information about that you can just drop me a message and i can
40:24
point you in the right direction for that and one of the things we've all said is remember everyone
40:30
grieves differently there is no right way there is no right wrong way it's just your way some people do need to return to work
40:36
but in time they may need time degrees and so i've spoken to a lot of people over the years that actually they wanted
40:42
to throw themselves into work they didn't want to focus on anything else they just had to keep busy um but it doesn't matter how
40:49
long it takes whether it's six days six weeks six months or even 60 years grief is grief and it
40:55
will come and eventually um eventually it will be there and grief is
41:01
not a psychological disorder even though it may feel like it at times grief doesn't just go away doesn't heal
41:09
wounds and i suppose the utmost thing that i want to tell everybody is to be compassionate
41:14
be a heart with ears listen but be compassionate could i have the next slide please
41:23
so as i mentioned earlier on we have mental health first aiders um i i think we should have a grief
41:29
person somebody that is specialized um at supporting and dealing with
41:35
grief um we degree first aiders who specialize in supporting an employee has
41:41
been bereaved and that this can also divorce loss of homeless to friendship or any other significant emotional loss so having
41:48
somebody that has um that can specialize and support somebody that is experienced in grief
41:54
um there can be training that can be offered for that as well we have mental health first aid and we
42:00
think about all the other things but i think if we had something specifically for grief and that might make companies um
42:09
sort of give it an area where do i go to well i've got a grief first aider and they specialize in bereavement
42:16
and so remember be a heart with ears having the correct procedures in place beforehand will ensure you are ready
42:22
offer training and have a quiet place to talk but just listen be there be available
42:30
and i think if you've put all this money into training somebody why not give them a little bit more time
42:36
and compassion and you'll get somebody back in in the workforce that will be there
42:42
again to start up again but there might be times where they need that moment and
42:47
that space to to grieve but why would you pump all that money into training somebody and
42:53
not give them compassion and understanding to come back to work and readjust to their
43:00
new normal i think in the long run it would save you money and the next i think that's the next one
43:07
it might be the last one i'm not sure that's it thank you very much for listening i said any questions
43:12
and please do ask them the q a thank you thank you very much for that lucy um
43:18
really great presentation um i'm going to come to questions we've got quite a few that have come in um i'm
43:25
gonna ask firstly the so just kind of group a few so we have had a few about
43:30
mental health first aiding about the fact that actually it doesn't cover uh bereavement is not covered in
43:36
that training um kirsty could you maybe share a little bit more about how organizations could and should
43:43
support any mental health first aiders to deal with bereavement and then lucy i'm going to come to you to ask a little
43:49
bit more about the concept of grief straight first aid training yeah we we are obviously growing um
43:57
along with this and we have seen in the recent months a few companies who are on the forefront
44:03
on the front foot sorry with their mental health fair days is booking our
44:08
training grief and loss aware loss improvement awareness as a an add-on as almost like a cpd module
44:16
for their first aid is um usually we're taking a view very much of
44:22
them being a safe place and just very much as lucy described sort of holding them
44:28
safely we would never be training somebody to become a fully fledged bereavement
44:34
counselor of the crew style takes a lot of time commitment and that's something that i think as yet organizations aren't quite ready
44:41
for maybe in time that's something that will that will evolve but even people are so we're doing webinar
44:47
training at the moment having a couple of hour webinar to help people understand what grief is
44:53
what group isn't to expand a lot on what we've said here to cover supportive conversations which as mental health first aiders are
44:59
already should be hopefully pretty pretty adept at but then making sure turning that to case studies around
45:06
somebody coming to say i'm feeling awful because of dot dot dot on the dot dot involves agreement
45:11
that's something we we are doing but not consistently and it's something that's possibly
45:17
worth considering in an organization as a next step if you already have mental
45:22
health first aiders okay and then lucy just ask you to kind of expand a little bit on your
45:27
on your concept there somebody's asked are there any providers you know of the offer that training and how does it link with
45:33
the mental health i am that provider it was an initiative that i came up with
45:38
um being a a grief first aider and so if eddie wants to find out a bit more
45:44
information about it than by always give me a shout but i do have a team of people that are growing
45:49
um to ensure that companies have this in place um but a bit like with everything else
45:55
it's you have mental health side of things i just think calling it the grief first aider gave it
46:00
that title that people would understand because we don't like to think that it's when you're grieving that it's a mental
46:06
health uh thing that is although there are lots of things concepts that happen from grief um but having a brief first
46:13
data in place would point could um a point in the right direction who you need to speak to
46:18
um what to do what to say what not to do um so if a company had that in place then
46:24
they'd know that they they just talk them through the steps of where they need to go um so yeah so i can offer that um training
46:31
for yourselves i think yeah i think what's your website
46:36
say it again what's up what's what's your website sorry i think the the information is all
46:42
on on these slides here um but it's also in the cipd um
46:48
brochure that's the word i was looking for the brochure but by all means i said yes grief first aid this is what
46:53
we need i think lucy will agree agree with the thought that where mental health first aid has come on a massive
47:00
journey over the last five to ten years um grief loss and bereavement
47:05
is probably where mental health was back five ten years ago we're only now
47:11
really we're just starting it's starting to get talked about and not and that hopefully that will continue
47:19
um and claire have you got any advice on as a i'm kind of got a few questions as an hr professional how you can kind of upskill yourself in
47:26
this area particularly if you're trying to provide support and what that might do to your own well-being as well
47:32
yeah and we have um some guidance um that we've done with mind people
47:38
managers guidance to mental health so i'd really recommend that people um take a look at that and whether
47:44
they're in hr whether they're a line manager because i think that would be really helpful um and i think you know providing good
47:50
work for people ensuring good people management practices after bereavement is really helpful
47:56
it also might be appropriate to carry out stress audits to highlight any risks to psychological health and training
48:03
line managers around you know making sure that people have realistic workloads that they're offering flexibility
48:10
um are all things that are really helpful and also training line managers around spotting the early warning signs of
48:16
stress or distress following um a bereavement i think would be incredibly helpful
48:22
thank you um i've got a question uh is there are there any specific themes of needs
48:28
coming from clovid19 different from other causes of death i mean courtesy can i ask you that first
48:34
is that coming through in the kind of helplines is it does it require slightly different approach at all
48:39
to unmute yourself um i'm not the last stats i heard from our
48:46
helpline and was actually covered 19 deaths is the third most common called up about
48:53
currently still cancer and and hearts followed by covid um
48:59
i think we're still learning i think we are still adapting we know so much more as an
49:05
organization than we did back at the beginning i think um the fact that when somebody sadly
49:12
does die with kovid there is a few good few weeks from being admitted to hospital to
49:19
ultimately sadly any death is something we didn't understand at the beginning so i suppose i'm not the best clinical
49:27
person if i'm really honest and i think we are still working and we're still researching on that but we're also still very
49:33
mindful of all the other all the other bereavements and all the other losses and all the other deaths
49:38
that happened in this time that have also been impacted by the restrictions and i think actually
49:45
at cruz the cause of death isn't really where we focus
49:51
it's the emotional impact and the the ripples um and how people are able to get the
49:57
support and i think we all people have been massively impacted by not being able to meet with loved ones
50:03
talk with loved ones and that's that's the same whether somebody has died with cancer or whether somebody has died
50:09
with covid so i think we're looking for what's more alike than than different i feel like
50:16
watered a bit but i think we're saying i think there's definitely a sense that
50:21
covid is taking the limelight and we shouldn't forget all the wider the all the wider losses
50:29
at this time and lucy any kind of anecdotal data from
50:34
you on the the impact of the current situation and it could be that cause of death it could be maybe this
50:39
social isolation um exactly as grief is grief um whether
50:44
like kirsty said you've died with a heart a heart attack or cancer or covered i think the only
50:51
difference now is that we're having to do things slightly differently so you can't necessarily be with your loved one when they've died so that's
50:57
going to have an impact on how you grieve um because it's um and the fact that
51:03
the funerals you can't have as many people there to say goodbye and i think there is uh something
51:11
i was talking to a friend uh colleen and and i said to her it says though the tsunami of grief is
51:17
waiting to come and i said i don't think this is gonna we're not gonna be aware
51:22
um of actually the impact of what coronavirus has had on people's health their
51:29
mental health their grief everything all sorts of that this is gonna be 12 months two years down the line
51:35
um or however long we stay in lockdown for but there is a tsunami of grief waiting to come
51:40
and it's going to overwhelm everybody and hopefully having a brief policy in place and having all
51:47
these support initiatives in place beforehand and being prepared for your business of
51:53
the people that have been bereaved and how the grievers are going to be
51:59
and claire have you got any tips on how to deal with this as a people professional um given that you are probably working
52:05
from home and everybody's working with the people that you're working with are working from home
52:10
we haven't got that at that place yeah i think you know i think that the
52:15
role of the line manager becomes ever more important you know if people are coming back into the physical work space you might be
52:21
able to pick up on you know some of the signs and but actually working remotely it becomes more difficult so it's so important to
52:28
get those regular deliberate one-to-one conversations in place you know making sure that you are
52:33
talking to bereaved employees that you're finding out about their personal circumstances that you're supporting them
52:39
you know as much as you possibly can and you know as we as we've said because of the pandemic people be
52:44
juggling you know all sorts of other issues um that you know that we don't even know
52:50
about potentially you know they might have uh caring responsibilities for older people which are more challenging in the
52:56
pandemic you know there'll be lots of different things so so important to have those supportive conversations
53:01
and also to make adjustments to support them as much as possible thank you kirsten somebody specifically
53:08
asked um about um cruz's bereavement social groups i don't know if that's something you can talk about
53:13
support installation post bereavement yeah we we always have offered group support um
53:19
it is very variable depending because because of how cruise is very local national and local
53:26
we if i'm honest don't have consistent support across the country it's very much driven by the volunteer population
53:33
within that within an area so if you ever look online you'll see different branches there are sort of on
53:39
the ground um volunteers we they were certainly in the past to run group work
53:46
and we're certainly moving back to bereavement support groups and other social groups obviously at the moment
53:52
they can't they can't happen so i'd say look at where you are located and in time that's where
54:00
the areas will be i know they were getting going with walking groups until the rules changed um so it's
54:06
certainly something we've done but i can't say it is consistently available
54:12
um there was also a question about loss of a home on the chat just to touch on that we
54:18
specifically call our training loss and bereavement awareness breedman is obviously the ultimate
54:23
loss but the training we talk about various um models and theories to help support
54:29
people with loss improvement and they are as equally as applicable to family breakup divorce um my last family
54:36
breakup loss of home and other losses but we obviously put it in the context and through the filter of
54:42
bereavement but it could it's applicable thank you and i think this question's probably for somebody who works in the
54:48
healthcare sector or social care have you got any thoughts about how to support frontline staff who are talking to bereaved
54:53
relatives of patients um lucy any thoughts on that
54:59
similar sort of thing and so as i said i mentioned i'm a recovery specialist so i am certified by grief uk to be able
55:07
to help and support people through all different types of loss a bit earlier you're saying about
55:13
mentioning about home loss financial loss and divorce all sorts of things like that um
55:19
contact uh either grief uk or another support organization to give you the training to be able to support them
55:25
um in the future yeah um and claire any thoughts on supporting
55:30
frontline staff who are dealing with grief kind of adjacently i guess
55:37
you know i i think it will be following lots of the steps that we've outlined today frontline staff will be under
55:43
immense pressure so um you know coping with their own um you know
55:49
with the associated impact upon them um you know is really important in our
55:54
guidance we have some links to some nhs bereavement support documents which i think are really
56:00
helpful and quite specialist so i'd probably direct people to take a look at the guidance and go through to those um
56:05
links specifically thank you and we did a question earlier which i've lost that somebody was asking about um
56:12
any advice on if you have been bereaved how to kind of raise it and address it with your line manager or or with hr i'm
56:20
kirsty if you're coming at it from that side um if you are the brief person
56:28
you know what you need if you're the breed person um i don't you know we would all like to think your line manager will would be
56:35
human about it if you don't feel their human the right person find the right person
56:41
in your organization who will be um it's all about people it's all about relationships
56:48
um there isn't a formula and it's really hard to give anything very very specific but you know
56:56
you you if you believed will know speak it's hard to speak up but once you're
57:03
over that h that hurdle hopefully that will put you in the best position to
57:09
pull on the sources of support but i understand it's difficult thank you and lucy anything from your
57:16
experience to add for that how you kind of raise it if you're you are that staff member
57:23
i'm just mirroring really what kirstie's just said and there's not a lot of things i do any
57:29
differently thank you um i'm going to draw it to a closed edge i think i've taken
57:35
most of the the questions our manatee lucy's been putting some links in the comments and chats uh as
57:41
well um as i said earlier the slides are going to be available to download loads of really really useful resources
57:48
um that i think that a lot of people watching would find incredibly helpful um thank you so much to
57:54
claire kirsty and lucy for joining us this afternoon and for sharing your thoughts on this topic and thank you for
57:59
everybody watching thank you for your questions and i hope we answered uh most of those uh understand
58:05
this is a really difficult topic on a personal level but also for as people professionals
58:11
as well this has been such a such a tough year so do remember the copd resources such
58:16
as wellbeing helpline are there to support you um in supporting your staff but that is
58:22
it from us for now and we'll be back with a webinar on vaccines kind of
58:27
how to deal with that in the workplace on the 11th of february so hopefully we'll see you there but um
58:32
have a good afternoon and thanks very much for joining us bye for now thank you
58:41
thank you
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