Bereavement Support

Assistance with the grief which follows the death of a spouse, child, parent, or other close friend or relative is the focus of a new effort at Fawcett Funeral Homes. Michael Fawcett has been featured in both Canadian Funeral Director and the American Funeral Director Magazines discussing the benefits of the program.

The program, which acts to bring the hospital benefits of grief counseling directly into the home of the grieving spouse or family, has been initiated by Fawcett Funeral Homes in the form of a monthly grief-recovery assistance HelpLetter called Afterloss. The publication is written to provide care and comfort to the grieving, a need that has been long neglected in our society.

The AfterLoss HelpLetters were featured in the front page story, "Solace After Bereavement" in a recent issue of The New York Times devoted to the need for assistance for the breaved. The HelpLetters are published by Canadian owned AfterLoss, Inc. The editor, Margie Kennedy-Reeves, Ph.D., is a thanatologist and crisis counselor at the Eisenhower Medical Center (also home of the Betty Ford Center) who counsels in bereavement and teaches the widely acclaimed weekly bereavement class at the hospital. Included in the monthly newsletter are a number of articles to help bring understanding into the grieving process and to assist the bereaved in learning how to cope with and eventually replace the debilitating effects of grief.

Articles which appear each month in the eight-page publication include such subjects as the major symptoms of grief; effects of grieving on health; getting past the anger; sexuality and survivor; how to handle loneliness; anticipatory grief vs. sudden death - which is worse?; the differences between 'his and her' grief, and what to say to the newly bereaved person. Questions from readers dealing with grief are answered in the newsletter and a monthly feature, Loss and Recovery, presents a case history of how different individuals met and overcame the loss of their loved ones. Three special issues include one devoted exclusively to child loss, another focuses on the special need of the recently widowed, and the third issue entitled Facing the Holidays After My Loss is also very helpful.

The funeral home is also making copies of the AfterLoss Portfolio, an album that contains all these HelpLetters, available for all clergymen, school counselors and palliative care groups to borrow at any time. Fawcett Funeral Homes are also beginning a program to bring the HelpLetters into the homes of the families they serve.

"It is our hope that by also providing this information to members of the clergy, it will assist them with their task of comforting the bereaved and helping them to restructure their lives without their loved one. "Hopefully, nursing home administrators and other health care professionals will be able to benefit from AfterLoss as they continually strive to improve the quality of care they provide to their families and patients. With school counselors, we are hoping to be able to provide this same kind of resource information to help young people cope with death, and of equal importance, to address the issue of suicide, one of the major causes of death among our young people today," he added.

Located in Collingwood and Creemore, Fawcett Funeral Homes has provided funeral assistance in the area since 1862. Our home is committed to staying with and working with the families of the deceased following the funeral services. AfterLoss is our "after-care" program,

-Michael C. Fawcett

Anyone wishing to receive additional information or a complimentary copy of the AfterLoss HelpLetter may do so simply by calling 705-445-2651 or by writing or stopping by Fawcett Funeral Homes.