BCCPC’s ground-breaking research into bereavement services continues and is gaining steam! Fall 2022 is a busy time for the project: hosting symposia and a policy roundtable; extending their investigation into grief experiences of BC’s unhoused or vulnerably housed and presenting the project’s findings at two conferences.
Bereavement symposiums and roundtable
Our bereavement symposiums were a success, with great discussions from two different perspectives, citizens experiencing bereavement and community-based organizations who support the bereaved. A third symposium, for organizations who provide non-bereavement services, has been postponed until after we have completed our research studies that are currently investigating bereavement in people experiencing homelessness or vulnerable housing.
Our next event will be a virtual provincial roundtable on bereavement in BC at the end of November. The roundtable will bring together bereavement service providers, clinicians, researchers, policy makers, grief program administrators, or individuals doing other relevant work in this area to have research-informed conversations and make recommendations to improve the bereavement experience in BC.
Bereavement supports for the unhoused
Investigating bereavement supports for the unhoused, we are taking a two-pronged approach: the first is to get insights from those who provide services to this population, and the second is to gather information from members of that population.
We had 72 people participate in the survey which investigated perspectives of frontline workers or volunteers who provide services to people who are unhoused or vulnerably housed in BC. The survey focused on grief supports available for people who are unhoused or vulnerably housed who are experiencing grief after the death of someone important to them.
Looking ahead, the team plans to extend their investigation to include gathering information from people who are unhoused or vulnerably housed themselves: learning about their experiences with bereavement, what supports that they used, and what can be done to make these supports more available.
Presenting our findings
BCCPC’s bereavement research team presented a poster about our bereavement research at the 33rd Annual Palliative Education & Research Day hosted by Covenant Health on October 24, 2022. The poster is titled “Insights Into the Bereavement Experience and the Access to Support Services in British Columbia in the Post COVID-19 Era”.
We also provided a research update to the Pan-Canadian Palliative Care Research Collaborative on October 18, 2022 titled “Updates on bereavement studies focusing on individuals who are experiencing homelessness and vulnerable housing in BC (frontline survey and interviews with people with lived experience).”
