Webinar to help people managers address death and grief
A free webinar is taking place tomorrow to help organisations and individuals acknowledge and address dealing with grief, as part of National Grief Awareness Week.
National Grief Awareness Week, taking place from 2 to 8 December, provides a dedicated period for individuals, organisations and communities to come together to acknowledge and address the various aspects of grief.
To raise awareness Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce members CAPE Coaching and Development and Birmingham Hospice are providing people managers with a webinar tomorrow at 2pm.
Lynsey Kitching (pictured), co-founder and director at CAPE said: “Death is a life event that happens to us all. However, talking about grief and loss at work often still feels like a taboo subject.
“For many managers whose team members experience bereavement, it can feel difficult to know what to say and how to support them.
“Managers we work with at CAPE often share with us that they worry what might happen if they say the wrong thing and upset someone.
“Or they are not sure of the right terminology or language to use. This can lead to people saying nothing because they panic and freeze in these sorts of situations.”
Birmingham Hospice meets its community's complex, sensitive needs by providing care in their specialist Inpatient Units, care for people in their own home, support at their Living Well Centres, and counselling and wellbeing services.
The charity cares for around 1,000 patients on average each day.
They also run free training for organisations in Greater Birmingham who are looking to provide their people with support on how to talk about grief and loss at work, and develop more compassionate workplaces.
Suzanne McArthur, head of community development and partnerships at Birmingham Hospice said: “It's really important to us at Birmingham Hospice that we help everyone feel equipped to have conversations about death and grief.
“For people returning to work after someone close to you dies, having a manager that can support you can really make a difference in terms of that experience.
“We've worked with CAPE to support the development of forty of our own people managers and so collaborating with them on this webinar to reach other managers was a great opportunity.”
Lynsey added: “Great performance and impact as a manager comes from having the courage and confidence to have great conversations - even the ones that feel the most uncomfortable.
“In this complimentary webinar we want to help managers feel more comfortable to talk about death which in turn will support the wellbeing of their teams and themselves."
Join Lynsey alongside Suzanne McArthur and Beth Jones, clinical supervisor at Birmingham Hospice, for a CAPE conversation as part of National Grief Awareness Week.
