Sample workshops and presentations
Grief and loss are deeply personal experiences, and my goal is to meet each audience wherever they are on their journey. These workshops are flexible in length and can be customized to address the specific needs and context of the participants.
Pastors Need to Grieve Too
Objective: to help pastors and ministry leaders identify and acknowledge non-death losses experienced within their own lives and ministry
Description: Pastors are often called to administer comfort and care to those families whose loved one has died or to provide comfort for the congregant who is experiencing a tragic crisis. However, pastors also need to learn how to identify the losses within their own lives because of ministry that does not necessarily contain death. How do you learn to grieve those losses experienced in ministry and take that grief and integrate the loss into your own life and ministry? Topics include how to acknowledge what has happened and grieve it, then embrace and integrate the loss into a new perspective. It is learning all about the million dollar experience you wouldn’t pay a nickel for.
Audience: for pastors, spouses of pastors and ministry leaders
Grief and Loss as experienced by the newcomer to Canada
Objective: to help participants learn about culture shock and adjustments through the lens of non-death losses and grief.
Description: Newcomers to Canada are seen as people who go through culture shock, as if it is one big event with an arrival to the end place of adjustment. This presentation will pull apart the concept of culture shock through the lens of grief and loss so that participants can recognize their students are going through multiple layers of mourning. There are four distinct stages of mourning: to accept the reality of the loss (and the presentation will go into detail as to what those losses are); to process the pain of their grief and loss; to adjust to a world where their former lives have faded; and to find ways to remember their former lives while embracing this new journey in Canada. The outcome of the presentation is to provide a greater awareness to instructors to the complex layers of multiple losses of their learners and provide ways to bring resilience to the class as a whole.
Audience: English Language Teachers, Tutors, People who work with international people or newcomers to Canada.
The Gift of Grief
Objective: to help participants understand the fundamentals of grief, people’s reactions to grief and how to assist the griever
Description: Grief is a gift, not something to be avoided. Many of us find ourselves being a support to someone who has experienced a death in their family. How can you be of any help? What should I say? When will they be over it? This presentation will provide information regarding the grief process and the feelings that might be expressed by the griever. Topics include concepts of the grief process, active listening skills and what not to say.
Audience: general
Hope Beyond Loss
Objective: to help participants understand the fundamentals of grief when experiencing losses, people’s reactions to this loss and how to assist the griever
Description: Can people grieve loss without having someone die? Absolutely! There is grief over the loss of a job, the loss of a spouse through divorce, the loss of health and even the loss of a dream. Life transitions such as empty nest and retirement as well as caring for elderly parents also provide fertile ground for experiencing loss. These journeys all need time to grieve. How can you be of help to someone who has experienced these losses? Topics include the concepts of the grief process in non-death losses, active listening skills and what not to say.
Audience: general
My Grandpa Died: helping a child grieve
Objective: to help participants understand the fundamentals of grief and how they are experienced in a child.
Description: Children experience grief and loss which often comes out in behavioural expressions rather than verbal. Their understanding of the loss is particular to when the loss occurred in the developmental stages of life. Their understanding of this loss centers around their own safety and future. Topics include understanding grief through the lens of a child’s development and practical guidelines for caregivers.
Audience: teachers, social workers, tutors, childcare providers
Perinatal Loss
Objective: to help participants understand the fundamentals of losing a child and particularly in the event of a miscarriage or stillbirth
Description: Losing a child through a miscarriage or stillbirth is unimaginable; it is the loss of the hope for a future. This presentation helps parents and extended family such as grandparents and aunts/uncles understand how to process this unique grief and loss. Topics include
understanding child loss within grief theories and how to incorporate a meaningful steps towards healing
Audience: family members, friends