You may know that here at The Loss Foundation we are passionate about providing those who need some extra support during their bereavement with a place to go. We know how valued our current support groups are, so in addition to our general peer-support groups we are introducing our new therapeutic groups, which will be related to research we are doing.
Have you run the therapy groups before?
Yes! You may remember that a couple of years ago we trialled a new type of support in the form of therapeutic groups, which we ran in 2016. These groups were found to be helpful in reducing distressing feelings of grief, anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress while also increasing self-compassion.
The groups were so successful that we are running them again!
How are the therapeutic groups different from the general support groups?
Our current support groups are peer-support groups, which are unstructured and based on the needs of those who come along on the day.
Our therapeutic groups will be led by psychologists and consist of 7 sessions of structured content focusing on specific aspects of grief or other associated difficulties, for example, difficult memories, troubled sleep, anxiety. The sessions are aimed at helping people learn more about loss and how to cope with all that arises from it, as well as helping them make stronger connections with others in a similar situation. Therefore we ask that people commit to attending all 7 sessions, rather than attending as and when.
We want to understand if our therapeutic groups can help improve many of the difficult grief reactions that people have when they have lost someone they love. We also wanted to know which parts of our therapeutic groups were most helpful. We will be running the therapy groups as a research project so that we can measure exactly how they are helping people. As this is a research project we will be asking those who take part to complete questionnaires online at different time points, which will help us (and you) monitor any changes in how you are doing.
We will be redelivering the therapeutic groups again starting in October 2018. You can find out more details and register for the groups by clicking here. And you can sign up to our monthly mailing list on our Contact page to be kept up to date with all future groups.
We look forward to branching out our services and supporting you in a new way.
The Loss Foundation is committed to delivering the most effective cutting edge bereavement support and as such we recognise that more research into the process of grieving and the factors that might make an individual’s journey more difficult is desperately needed in order to design better support systems and services.
What we have learned over the last few years is that in the UK there is a shocking lack of services for those who are grieving, arguably one of the most difficult experiences that any of us will go through, we want to change this. We believe that individuals should be able to access this support for free meaning that we need to prove there is a need for it.
The Oxford Grief Study is open to anyone who has lost a close loved one and we particularly welcome participation from male grievers who are often very underrepresented within the grief research and within bereavement services. If your loved one died in the last 6 months then you will be invited to a study that involves answering some questions at three time points over the next year. If your loss was more than 6 months ago you will be invited to complete some measures at one time point only.
If you are interested in hearing more about the study you can register your interest by clicking on my face above or visiting The Oxford Grief Study website.
Best wishes,
Kirsten