What is Bereavement
Bereavement is the personal journey of grieving the loss of a loved one. Many factors affect this often difficult journey, including the circumstances surrounding the loss, an individual’s support network, and his or her resilience.
An accumulating body of evidence also suggests that those who have strong spiritual affiliations, often ‘cope’ better when faced with bereavement. But ‘coping’ is a subjective measurement and undergoing bereavement at some stage, is inevitable for us all.
The older theories of grief depicted grief as a linear or circular process, that moved in a graded fashion, from shock to denial and eventually to acceptance, but we now know that grief is a far more complex process than this; the grieving person will be more dynamically mobile between his or her grief processing and other daily processing.
Bereavement Support
Most bereaved people will traverse their journeys without support but talking about grief is known to help. Support can be accessed through professional routes, including bereavement support charities, locally funded support groups or via talking therapies and NHS services.
Local community circles are often a good informal avenue for support for those who are grieving.
As family, friends, neighbours and colleagues to the bereaved, perhaps we also have a role to play in offering informal support? Not offering space to grieve to others and even avoiding the bereaved, are common reported adverse experiences – these experiences contribute to exacerbating an individual’s grief.
Accessing Bereavement Support
Offering practical or emotional support on the other hand, can sometimes be a lifeline for a bereaved individual.
A number of bereavement support charities offer training programmes that can help upskill interested individuals in offering general emotional support.
Directories including Ataloss and the Good Grief Trust both list the many local and national bereavement support organisations in an accessible way.
The Muslim Bereavement Support Service is a registered charity, founded in 2012. They are a non-profit organisation serving the Muslim community by supporting bereaved mothers who have lost a child at any stage.
They also work with other organisations, the NHS and hospices in particular, to give a spiritual context to the bereavement support services they offer.
The Muslim Support Service Bereavement packs
Resources to support fellow brothers and sisters who have experienced the loss of a loved one.
Each support pack includes a range of literature curated by esteemed scholars and us.
The pack includes information and duas on how to cope with a person’s feelings, tips on how to better take care of oneself both physically and spiritually, and a guide to help those grieving look ahead to the future.
For details of how to order your pack visit the website.
Paid leave for NHS staff experiencing pregnancy loss
NHS staff who suffer a miscarriage will now receive up to 10 days additional paid leave, under new guidance issued to local hospitals on 13th March 2024.
