Bereavement team helps people through all kinds of grief

by Christine Kovach, LCSW, Bereavement Services Manager

April 2024

I have worked in grief support for many years, and I can say with certainty that the grieving process is different for each person and each loss. The one constant is that grief always takes time. Our grief support team helps families and loved ones through this process for many months in a variety of ways so that everyone can find the kind of help they need. 

Grief is impacted by so many different factors. Some people – for example, those whose loved one is in hospice care – may have had time to prepare themselves for a death. Others experience a sudden, surprising loss. Grief can be especially intense for people with a limited support system, who have had multiple losses or other big stressors, or who have experienced a recent traumatic death.

At Mission Hospice, we are committed to going above and beyond what Medicare requires for grief support – and to support the entire range of grief. We offer short-term individualized grief counseling for the loved ones of our patients, as well as a wide range of grief support groups, workshops, and other special offerings open to the community. 

We do this all with our small but mighty team of three staff (I am joined by Bereavement Coordinators Delaney Woo, LCSW, and Kate Nitze, MSW) and a cadre of dedicated volunteers, including counseling associates and student interns, retired therapists, social workers, and nurses, and other trained bereavement volunteers. I am inspired daily by their commitment and creativity. Working with this team is magic – I’m in the wonderful position of saying “YES, let’s do it.”

It is our goal to care for people throughout our community, regardless of how or why they need grief support after the death of a loved one. This also means offering different modalities of support – whether it is in-person or online, and whether based on group discussion, individual counseling, physical movement, or creative and expressive arts. 

Our bereavement program is expansive, ambitious, and inclusive. Not everybody wants grief counseling. Not everybody wants to be in a traditional support group. Some people benefit from a creative arts or writing process. Others are soothed by somatic care. We’re always thinking about new ways to help people heal.

Recent and upcoming programs – many supported by grants from Sandhya’s Touch – include workshops on Drumming for Grief, Art for Healing, SoulCollage®, Writing Through Loss, and sound healing, which uses vibrations from gongs and singing bowls to help participants regulate their breathing. The imagery and metaphor in these workshops can help people to allow for embodied engagement with grief and to work with grief expression in a symbolic way. None of these workshops require any experience – just a willingness to explore with a creative process.

Community funding and partnerships allow us to reach people in new ways. For example, the San Bruno Community Foundation sponsors an in-person grief support group at the San Bruno Senior Center. We have a partnership with the senior center Avenidas in Palo Alto to create a public ofrenda (altar) and some unique programs for Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead). In December, we partner with Compassionate Friends to cohost the Worldwide Candle Lighting, bringing light into the darkness of grief. For several years, our Spiritual Counselor Rachel Rosenberg has led a memorial service at the Pacifica Senior Center. And of course, Mission Hospice holds our annual public memorial service, Season of Remembrance, in May.

There is a lot to grieve in the world right now, and these programs let us bring people together to acknowledge our own personal grief and provide an outlet for the collective grief we’re all holding.

Grief often doesn’t go away completely, but rather changes in intensity over time – and everyone needs different support at different times. Some people are ready to talk about it right after their loss; others are ready at the anniversary of the death. Sometimes a death throws people into financial challenges or into the work of managing an estate, and they can’t begin to think about their broken hearts right away.

What I love about Mission Hospice is that our whole team is committed to offering a range of support so that no matter what your circumstances or experience, when you are ready – we are here for you.  

Our events calendar lists upcoming support groups and workshops. You can find videos of past programs on our YouTube channel.