Our Goals

We hope that participants will learn effective ways to cope with their loss. We hope that participants will feel supported and know that they are not alone in their grieving experience. Through the process of learning and sharing, we hope to minimize the risk of depression and/or other unhealthy behaviours that some survivors experience after the loss of a loved one. We achieve these outcomes through our group meetings, making information materials available from our lending library, and one-on-one peer counseling. Two types of group meetings are held each month from September to June. The first meeting on the second Wednesday of the month is an information session with a guest speaker who shares his or her professional expertise on grieving and loss with the group. The second meeting on the fourth Wednesday of the month is a smaller, more informal gathering which, under the guidance of a bereavement facilitator, provides participants the opportunity to share their experiences and learn from each other. We follow up each speaker session with individual surveys taken at the meetings to ascertain the value of the information provided by the speaker. We look at various themes for topics we deem to be the most productive for speaker presentations to the group, topics with which to help the bereavement process e.g. loneliness, the stages of grieving, coping with loss, anger and its impact, dealing with life changes, and family communication.