Foundations of Grief for First Responders

Course Description

Have you experienced a grief in your home and family life that left you struggling through the days? Such grief can emerge from caregiving for an acutely or chronically ill family member, accompanying someone you love who is dying, or experiencing close family (e.g., spouse, child, parental, sibling, close friend) deaths.

This 1-day (7 hour) course explores grief, grieving, and mourning as found in one’s family and connected to first response work, critical incident stress management, and living in general.
The training engages and identifies activities designed to lead participants to personal awareness of grief; a working ability to support first responder peers in their personal grief; and self-reflection about embracing grief connected to personal grief experiences. The course addresses symbolic actions and other memorialization to support self-reflection, post-grief growth, and healing.
Particularly in first response work, feelings of unattended grief are often unrecognized, unaddressed, compartmentalized, and stacked up; such grief can eventually overwhelm bereaved first responders who may be unaware of, or feel ashamed by, why they feel so bad. In this 1-day training, participants will learn foundational grief principles.

Learning Objectives:

· Definitions of grief, grieving, and mourning

· How to recognize what intergenerational family grief looks like and whether it impacts current family grieving

· Who and how people die and how the circumstances of the death matter

· How to recognize the differences between grief’s sadness and posttraumatic stress

· How to talk to fellow first responders about grief: what to say and what not to say

· How to understand a child’s grief and how to include children in memorializing family members

· How to create a grief map and write a eulogy

Testimonials

"Beth extremely informative. Enjoyed her stories as they related well to the info being taught. Great class!"

"Dr. Beth is an excellent teacher.  She was so interesting and offered so much information the class went by quickly keeping your attention!! Such an interesting class. I want to take her advanced class!!"

"Instructor’s knowledge and understanding of the material. She engaged with participants and was very welcoming of different perspectives."