Grief literacy: A call to action for compassionate communities

Abstract

The compassionate communities movement challenges the notion that death and dying should be housed within clinical and institutional contexts, and works to normalize conversations about death and dying by promoting death literacy and dialogue in public spaces. Community-based practices and conversations about grief remain marginal in this agenda. We aimed to theorize how grief could be better conceptualized and operationalized within the compassionate communities movement. We develop the concept of Grief Literacy and present vignettes to illustrate a grief literate society. Grief literacy augments the concept of death literacy, thereby further enhancing the potential of the compassionate communities approach.

The impact of bereavement support on wellbeing: a comparative study between Australia and Ireland

“…Community initiatives, like compassionate community projects, enhance the natural supporters of grief through improving perceptions of and attitudes towards death, dying and bereavement, and harnessing the informal resources inherent in communities. 35 – 37 …”

“…Community initiatives, like compassionate community projects, enhance the natural supporters of grief through improving perceptions of and attitudes towards death, dying and bereavement, and harnessing the informal resources inherent in communities. [35][36][37] What is interesting is that, despite the different recruitment methodologies in the two studies and by consequence the different age distribution of the bereaved and their relationship to the deceased, the impact of the perceived insufficiency of support on health deterioration is very similar, just slightly higher in Ireland where the cohort with very recent bereavement in the last 6 months was included in the analysis (39% of total). The majority of the bereaved in Ireland were other relative and friend (total 63%) and the age is stratified to have equal proportions in each age group and hence only 29% were 55 years and over.…”

Exploring the Social Networks of Bereaved Spouses: Phenomenological Case Studies

“…The experience of grief that occurs for each person as they navigate bereavement is unique and depends upon the characteristics of the bereaved person, the circumstances of the death, and the broader context in which the loss occurs (Blackburn, & Dwyer, 2017;Burke & Neimeyer, 2013;Lobb, Kristjanson, Aoun, Monterosso, Halkett, & Davies, 2010). Social support is one such factor that can be modified after bereavement, yet has received limited research attention, due to the focus on individual and psychological phenomena at the expense of social and sociological contexts (Breen et al, 2019;Breen, Kawashima et al, 2020;Thompson et al, 2016). A recent systematic review provided a comprehensive investigation of studies on the factors that determine the provision of social support and the authors highlighted that the methodological flaws and fragmentation impeded the translation of research into practical strategies (Logan, Thornton, & Breen, 2018).…”

Understanding Death and Grief in the Context of Pandemics — Challenges and Support in Response to COVID-19

“…How to respond better to these fundamental needs is closely associated with the social environments in which they are situated. As such, better support for grief and bereavement requires a grief literate environment, to allow for mutual understanding and interdependent support both in individual bereaved people's day-to-day settings as well as in broader society (Breen et al, 2020). Based on a wider framework of compassionate communities, the emphasis on "grief literate" environments lies in the empowerment of communities in response to increasing professionalisation and inequalities in bereavement support (Kellehear, 2005).…”