Grief and Bereavement Studies

This assignment delves into the multifaceted nature of grief and bereavement. It examines a range of academic sources exploring topics such as prolonged grief disorder, complicated grief, the impact of traumatic loss, online grieving support groups, and therapeutic interventions for bereavement. The assigned readings provide diverse perspectives on understanding and addressing the complex emotional experiences associated with death and loss.

Supporting Significant Life
Events

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
1.1 Impact of significant life event on individuals.................................................................1
1.2 The possible group response to significant life events.....................................................3
1.3 Impacts on other people in social and health care............................................................4
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................5
2.1 Effectiveness of the organisational policies and procedures in supporting individuals
suffering from significant life events.....................................................................................5
2.2 Role of other people in the social network that provide support to people suffering from
significant life events..............................................................................................................6
2.3 Suitability of the external support provided to individuals suffering from significant life
event.......................................................................................................................................7
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................8
3.1 Analyse of organisational responses to the need to support individuals experiencing a
significant life event...............................................................................................................8
3.2 Personal reflection of the provision of support to individuals suffering from significant life
event.......................................................................................................................................8
3.3 Recommendations for improving the support in health and social care service..............9
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
Significant life events are those events which have both positive and negative impact on
the life of children's and parents. These life events can impact both children's and parents
physical, social, psychological and environmental wellbeing (Kaplanidou and et.al., 2013). Some
positive life events includes: getting married, promotion in job, having a baby, getting a new
house and getting a good job. These all are positive life event and have positive impact on the
social, physical and psychological well-being of the family. On the other hands there are some
negative life events such as: death of a family member or loved ones, sudden loss of
employment, major accidents, financial issues, physical or mental illness in children's and issues
related to domestic violence. The report will analyse the Impact of significant life event on
individuals and on other people in social and health care. Further, it will outline the Effectiveness
of the organisational policies and procedures in supporting individuals suffering from significant
life events. Moreover, the report will evaluate Role of other people in the social network that
provide support to people suffering from significant life events.
In this particular assignment there is discussion on negative life event i.e. loss of a child
by parents. The particular assignment is addressing the grief response of parents, mother named
Sue and father named Tom on the loss of their daughter Jill, due to leukaemia approximately 1
years ago. In this case the mother of Jill i.e. Sue is not able to cope with everyday living due to
loss she had. Tom suggested Sue to attend the professional counselling in order to move on in
life. She used to blame herself that she is still alive and why her daughter die who was so young.
They also have a son name David who was only 12 years old. There is adverse impact of this
event on the parenting style of David as his father wants him to do whatever he wants and
provides him full freedom on the other hand Sue had become more possessive after the loss of
one child.
This assignment will explain the impact of significant life events on the Sue and analyse
the responses from different group of individual on the particular life event. Along with this
assignment will also outline the effectiveness of various policies that provide support to Sue and
her husband who get affected through negative life events. It will also include the
recommendations that are necessary for improvement of support provided to people suffering
from such life events.
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TASK 1
1.1 Impact of significant life event on individuals
As per the views of Prothero and Berggren (2014), the negative life events can affect the
normal life of individuals by hindering their physical, psychological and social wellbeing. This
result in arousal of three situations namely stress, grief and depression. Stress is the physical,
psychological, biological and social response that leads to unexpected changes in the life of
individuals. Physical stress can be caused by low energy, headaches, upset stomach, etc.
Depression or general unhappiness. Anxiety and agitation. Moodiness, irritability, or anger.
Feeling overwhelmed are causes of emotional stress. Psychological stress refers to the emotional
and physiological reactions. For example, marital problems, death of loved ones, financial crises
etc. Social stressors are defined as behaviors and situations, social in nature, that are related to
physical and psychological strain. Examples of social stressors include: verbal aggression from
customers or superiors. Co-worker conflict, negative group environments The cognitive response
of stress includes: inability to concentrate on the routine work, poor judgement, thinking of only
negative side of the event and anxious thoughts. The physiological response includes the impact
on the immune system of the individual that generally includes pain, dizziness, nausea, frequent
colds and weakness. Along with this there are several social and behavioural response of stress
that generally includes: change in sleeping habits, isolation from the social world, start taking
alcohol, cigarettes and drugs and feeling nervous. There are certain emotional response that are
shown by individuals due to stress which includes: moodiness, agitation, feeling overwhelmed,
sense of loneliness and extreme grief.
According to Baxter and et.al., (2014) the common symptoms of grief generally includes
exhaustion and confusion. There are certain theory that explains the grief response among the
individual having significant event of loss in their life. One such theory is Kubler Ross model of
grief which consists of 5 stages and explain the grief process in the individuals.
 The first stage of the theory is Denial, according to this stage the grieving people are not
able to accept their loss. They feel like they had experience a bad dream and think the
loss that occur is unreal.
 Second stage is the expression of anger, after passing through the first stage and by
accepting the loss they started feeling angry on the loss they had faced. In some cases
they even get angry on the person they lost and feeling of abandonment may also occur.
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 After this the next comes bargaining stage, in this particular stage the individual beg to
their god regarding the bringing back the lost person and in return they will change their
lifestyle (Drasch and Matthes, 2013). Similar situation is in the case of Sue, where she is
crying for her daughter that she is so young and died and still alive, what she had done
wrong. Such statements are the indicative of the third stage of grief.
 The fourth stage is depression, during this stage they get themselves disconnected from
society and become lonely. There is change in eating and sleeping habits that highly
effect the normal functioning of the body.
 The final stage is acceptance where individuals finally accept the loss they had and start
planning for the future and again get re-engaged in their life. These are the impacts of
significant loss on the life individuals.
1.2 The possible group response to significant life events
There are many types of group responses to the individual who get suffered from the
significant life event. The groups generally include: family members, social workers, friends,
colleagues and society.
 Role of Friends:
Social connections especially friends are the most important part of group that helps the
individual by supporting them in the time of grief. In case of Tom and Sue they can be provided
with better support through their friends. Friends can provide social as well as psychological
support in hard times. They can provide them with emotional support at the time of funeral, by
providing them with love and compassion that can help in reducing the anger (Thompson and
Neimeyer, 2014). They can take the sufferer to gardens and let them to plant trees and water
them, through this they are able to attain the peace of mind. Along with this they can also
provide Sue with social support in order to come up from grief. Friends can also conduct the
social gatherings that help the parents to reduce their pain by providing them with moral and
emotional support.
 Role of Counsellor:
Counsellors provide the parents with counselling in which the parents are told to express
their feeling about the loss they had. Similarly, a counsellor can encourage Sue to communicate
freely regarding her loss and express the feeling of sorrow and anger she had inside her. A
counsellor can provide psychological support. After listening to the feeling of parent’s
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counsellor can provide them with effective grief counselling that helps in lowering down the pain
and also provide them mental peace through their talks and activities. The counsellor can also
encourage Sue to accept the happiness else it will not only affect the life of her but may also pose
impact on life her small son David.
It is also known that counsellors tends to encourage parents to think about positive
aspects of life that will effectively help them overcome from feeling of loss. Thus counsellor
play an important role by providing Sue with spiritual and psychological support. They can
provide Sue with mental stability by provision of effective psychological support. They also
advices them to think about the family they had as it will also have negative impact on whole
family. Counsellors teach them that it is good to remember their child and their good memories
with them rather hurting themselves by thinking of the loss.
 Role of Community:
Community comes under the category of strong group that helps the grieving parents by
listening to their loss and providing with moral and emotional support to cope up with the
situation. Along with this through social gathering community also help in providing Sue with
social and physical support. The people in society can encourage her to live happy life by
providing her with strong mental support. Community provide both social and spiritual support
by motivating effectively and efficiently. The community can help them through positive
response by listening to their grief and making them understand about accepting the loss they
had and move on in their life (Mesaros and et.al., 2015). The community generally includes
people of the similar caste and older people of the society.
1.3 Impacts on other people in social and health care
Significant life event not only affect the individual who are suffering from the loss but
also affect the other members in the social and health care setup. The members generally
includes: nurses, support workers, carers, managers and social workers (Weiler and et.al., 2013).
The highly affected members are nurses and the care providers that were involved in care
provision of the patients. These members were closest to the care receiver and have formed a
relationship and as a result the death of patients can have adverse impact on their life as well
(Maciejewski and et.al., 2016). The nurses and care providers can face emotional and
psychological impacts on their nursing practice. Similarly in the case of Jill, nurses those who
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were involved in care provision can also experience psychological and emotional impact on their
nursing profession.
The psychological impact of significant life event on nurses includes disturbance of the
mind due to memories of loss person and feeling of antagonism which leads to lack of
concentration in the provision of care (Thieleman and Cacciatore, 2013). Nurses are required to
provide variety of nursing care to patients in their daily routine thus this lack of concentration
can affect their working in practice area. Similarly in case of Jill the nurses can get affected by
the memories of her loss and leads to lack of concentration that can affect their working.
Similarly the emotional impacts of the significant life events on the nurses includes
crying and feeling of extreme sadness (Berg, Lundborg and Vikström, 2017). In the case of Jill
being a child can emotionally effect the nurses and the care givers which can further lead to
stress and depression. This feeling of stress can lead to fatigue that can affect the working of
nurses in the care centres. Along with this Jill was suffering from leukaemia which is a type of
cancer in which the blood forming cells are transformed into tumour cells. There are chances of
infection among the nurses that can also impact their own health while providing treatment to
Jill. Thus the nurses and care providers are highly affected by the significant life events where
patients die during treatment procedure. It is the roles and responsibility of the management of
the organisation to provide effective support to the family members of deceased so that they can
cope up with the stress.
TASK 2
2.1 Effectiveness of the organisational policies and procedures in supporting individuals
suffering from significant life events
The negative significant life events such as loss of child in this particular assignment leads
to stress, depression and grieving among the people associated to that particular child mainly
parents. Thus to provide support to the parents and other grieving people, government has
formed many policies and procedures. Some of the policies are mentioned below:
 National Institute for Health and Care Excellence: NICE also known as National
Institute for Health and Care Centre is a public body in the department of health in
United Kingdom. The main objective of this body is to use various advanced health
technologies within NHS and provide the appropriate treatment to the people having
severe disease (Sharpe, Joe and Taylor, 2013). The next important objective is to
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provide many support programmes and facilities to those people who are suffering
from the loss of their loved ones. It provide services to both English NHS and Welsh
NHS. Thus, this policy can effectively help Sue by developing the quality standards
and providing her support to come up from loss she had. Moreover, it helps the heath
care centre in establishing effective quality standards of managing services.
 Bereavement Care Standards: It is an initiative started with the partnership among
Cruse Bereavement Care and the Bereavement Services Association (BSA). The
main objective of this association is to look for the need of bereaved people and
provide them with effective services. This association provide their services in
various sectors such as hospitals, various care centres and home services. This is an
effective policy in the case of Sue as she requires counselling to cope up with loss of
Jill and to make her stabilize. This association can help people suffering from grief
by completing the process of grieving and can aid Sue in coming up from the
situation she is dealing with.
 Shaping Bereavement Care: This is a special organization that provides
bereavement services to the health care professionals, nurses and care provider who
were involved in provision of care to patients who dies (Varga and Paulus, 2014). In
this case nurses and other care providers have faced many psychological and
emotional impacts on their nursing profession. Thus this organization provide
effective counseling and education to all nurses and other involved health care
professionals who suffered from grief. This will further help them in effectively
conducting the routine activities without any emotional and psychological impact.
2.2 Role of other people in the social network that provide support to people suffering from
significant life events
There are many people in the social network of individuals that can provide them with
support when they are dealing from significant life event. Similarly in this case of Jill there are
many which can provide support to Sue to overcome from the loss of her daughter such as:
 Parents of Sue: The parents of Sue can provide her with moral and emotional
support to overcome from the grief of loss of her child. They can provide her with
counseling that can be helpful in stabilizing her provoking thoughts. Along with this
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they can provide her with education regarding principle of life and encourage her to
move on from the situation and look after her son David.
 Psychotherapist: The psychotherapist helps in stabilizing the Sue emotional outflow
that can further help in controlling the formation of negative thoughts in mind. These
negative thoughts further leads to anxiety and stress that can degrade the mental
condition of Sue. Thus they can effectively provide Sue with psychological support
to deal with feeling of loss.
 David: After overcoming from the grief of loss of daughter David can provide Sue
with mental and emotional support to get rid of the negative thoughts. As these
thoughts can further degrade her physical and mental condition. Thus he can take her
to the counsellor to complete with grieving process.
 Physical Support: Physical support can be provided by providing the shoulder to
people suffering from grief. Along with this hearing to their talks can also provide
them with support. The organisation which provides physical support is Palliative
care and Acacia.
 Psychological Support: Psychological support can be provided to individuals
suffering from grief by providing them with counselling. Mental counselling can
help in provision of psychological support. The organisation which provides physical
support is Acacia.
 Emotional Support: Emotional support can be provided to Sue by encouraging her
to complete the process of grieving. She can be encouraged by her family members
and husband to overcome from the situation she is dealing with. The organisation
which provides physical support is National health care services and Acacia.
2.3 Suitability of the external support provided to individuals suffering from significant life event
The suitability of the external support is necessary in order make individuals overcome from
the ongoing situation. This suitability can be ensured by application of holistic approach while
providing support to the individual suffering from loss of loved ones. In the case of Sue, she
needs to be provided with the effective emotional, psychological and social support. It was also
identified that according to Kubler Ross model of grief the Sue was on the third stage of
grieving. So to complete with the remaining two stages there is need holistic approach in which
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can be provided with support from psychotherapist and counsellors. They can help Sue in
stabilizing the negative thought process and encourage her to overcome from the feeling of loss.
Along with this there is also need to get support from various available government policies
and procedures. The organisations and their policies educates the person suffering from grieving
of their children that they should memorise the good memories of their children and remain
happy rather hurting themselves physically and psychologically. Thus there is need of these
policies and external support to follow the holistic approach while providing care to people
suffering from loss of their children in order to prove the suitability of the given support
(Christiansen, Elklit and Olff, 2013).
 External organisation that help in providing support to individuals are: National Institute
for Health and Care Centre is a public body the help in providing support to individuals
suffering from grief.
 This organisation help by providing emotional and physical support to individuals.
Another organisation that help in providing support is Bereavement Service Association.
 It provides aid to person by providing him psychological and spiritual support.
 Referral is important as provides various heath care opportunities at lowest possible cost.
 Another organisation named shaping bereavement care help by providing support to
nurses and other health care professional to make them psychological stable in order to
effectively conduct their daily activity.
TASK 3
3.1 Analyse of organisational responses to the need to support individuals experiencing a
significant life event
As discussed earlier there are many policies and procedures that are given by organisations
which help in providing the supports to individuals suffering from grief of their loss. These
policies mainly follow the principle of support that includes: the core principle it ensure the good
mental health of the patients and providing patients with effective treatment when any sign of
poor mental health is observed (Blood and Cacciatore, 2014). The second important principle is
to maintain the confidentiality and integrity of the patients to promote their respect and giving
value to their education and knowledge (Litz and et.al., 2014). Another principle is to provide
effective services to the individuals suffering from the loss of their loved ones and dealing with
bereaving process. Another important aspect of these organisations is the effective
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communication in the health care sectors and hospitals to make people aware regarding services
provided by these organisation to the people suffering from grief.
The organisations provide services and care to the individuals with respect and sympathy for
their loss and treat them effectively in order to improve their psychological and emotional
condition (Lichtenthal and et.al., 2015). These organisations are highly confidential during the
provision of their services as they completely follow the policies and procedures that are
provided certain national organisation to provide the sufferers with effective support services.
The organisation has its own code of standard and practices which are maintained to protect
the personal and recovery information of service users. Moreover, the heath care centres have
trusted staff members which do not allow anyone to enter the patients room instead of parents or
some immediate guardians. Apart from this, in case of Jill the NHS followed all the code of
ethics and principles which comprises right to inform about patients health and is done to make
his parents aware about its recovery. The organisation and the management provide effective
support to the employee who is affected with bereavement. By proper counselling and moral
support, the manager will aim to reduce the sadness and improve the affected employee
effectively.
3.2 Personal reflection of the provision of support to individuals suffering from significant life
event
I work as are person in one of the health care centre of UK and was providing the support
services to the parents who were suffering from the loss of their child. On the basis of the
assessment I found that they were on the second stage of grieving process and were showing
anger for their loss. I tried to make them calm but failed and then make them seated and start
listening to their emotional outflow and grief. They were assuming themselves as the main
reason for this loss and after few moments they started quarrelling regarding the reason for this
loss. Then I supported them with effective communication process and try to calm them. After
listening them completely they were quite relieved and now started begging to god to send their
child back.
There mental condition was not stabilizing and now they were on the third stage of their
grieving process. This was similar to the case of Sue where she was also begging for the life of
her daughter. After this I tried to encourage them to come up from the situation by memorising
the beautiful memories of their child and should stop hurting themselves. Now they hold on to
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the corners of the room and start talking to themselves and were driving themselves to the state
of depression. After this I suggested getting the grief counselling from the counsellor and some
stress relieving therapies in order to reduce the level of stress that lead to depression. Then I
referred them to my senior counsellor where they get effective counselling session and are now
living the happy life. Similarly, there is need of counselling to the Sue in order to complete with
the grieving process and move on in the life. I learned about various stages of grief and also how
to support the individuals suffering from this problem. Along with this also get are regarding
many policies that are involved in providing effective support to grieving individuals to
overcome from the ongoing situation. I evaluated that there are various health care facilities and
services which enhanced to serve satisfactory customer services. Hence, I analyse that referral
plays major role for service users in analysing the low health care services. In this context, I will
contribute my maximum efforts in acquiring more knowledge and information that will nurture
my skills and I will be able to deal identical or different cases effectively and efficiently. Further,
I will aim to increase my capabilities and abilities so that I can provide enough support to the
affected ones adequately.
3.3 Recommendations for improving the support in health and social care service
On the basis of above discussion it can be recommended to nurses and care providers to
attain the special training session that can help in lowering down their grief response for the
patients they treat (Smid and et.al., 2015). Along with this it is also to the support group that they
should provide effective support to the individuals by following the holistic approach and
policies that are defined by certain organisation.
It is also suggested to nurses to involve the family and friends of the person dealing with
grief. As family help in providing the physical and emotional support to the person and help in
completing the process of grieving. Along with these friends can provide with social support to
the particular person by involving them in social gathering and planning a weekend out of the
city in order to divert their mind.
CONCLUSION
From the above discussion it can be concluded that loss of a child is most devastating
incident in the life of parents. This particular incident hinders their normal functioning in routine
life. Children's are the piece of heart of their parents. This completely states that death of child
signifies the overall loss of dreams, hopes, future and strength of parents which are attached with
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their child. Thus, there is need of nurses to play important role in helping parents who face loss
of their child. Along with this they can provide training to their parents and friends in order to
provide them with effective physical, emotional, social and psychological support.
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REFERENCES
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Berg, G. J., Lundborg, P. and Vikström, J., 2017. The economics of grief. The Economic
Journal. 127(604). pp.1794-1832.
Blood, C. and Cacciatore, J., 2014. Best practice in bereavement photography after perinatal
death: qualitative analysis with 104 parents. BMC psychology. 2(1). p.15.
Christiansen, D. M., Elklit, A. and Olff, M., 2013. Parents bereaved by infant death: PTSD
symptoms up to 18 years after the loss. General hospital psychiatry. 35(6). pp.605-611.
Drasch, K. and Matthes, B., 2013. Improving retrospective life course data by combining
modularized self-reports and event history calendars: experiences from a large scale
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Kaplanidou, K. and et.al., 2013. Quality of life, event impacts, and mega-event support among
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bereavement disorder”, but not “complicated grief”, are one and the same diagnostic
entity: an analysis of data from the Yale Bereavement Study. World Psychiatry. 15(3).
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