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ABSCo Conference 2014 The Cost of Bereavement: is your service fit for purpose?
Plenary 1: Dr Marilyn Relf, Bereavement Care Lead, Sir Michael Sobell House, Oxford. Marilyn has been involved in bereavement care since the mid-1980s. As well as setting up one of the first hospice services, she is also a founder Trustee of SeeSaw (for bereaved young people in Oxfordshire). She has been involved in a number of bereavement studies gaining her PhD for an evaluation of the effectiveness of bereavement support volunteers. Her writing includes the Guidance for Bereavement Needs Assessment in Palliative Care (with Linda Machin and Nikki Archer). She is an editor of the journal Bereavement Care and is a member of the International working Group on Death, Dying and Bereavement. She has led a number of educational projects and recently gained an award for partnership working for her work with care givers and with community groups. Currently she manages the Sobell House bereavement service, coordinates the Oxfordshire Bereavement Alliance and chairs a multi-disciplinary Care After Death working party for the Oxfordshire End of Life Care group.
Plenary 2: Alison Penny, Coordinator, Childhood Bereavement Network and National Bereavement Alliance. Alison is currently coordinating the National Bereavement Alliance. She is also Coordinator of the Childhood Bereavement Network (CBN), hosted by the National Children's Bureau. She has kept the sector updated with relevant policy and research developments, and helped the field to develop consensus on key policy and practice topics, leading to gains in national policy in bereaved children’s interests. Alison has a particular interest in supporting services to demonstrate the effectiveness of their work, and is currently developing a national outcome tool for the child bereavement sector: work she is also taking forward as a PhD. Before joining the bereavement sector, Alison worked with the children and families of prisoners, and with children with special educational needs. She has Masters degrees in the Sociology of Childhood and in Education and Social Research.
Plenary 3: Anne Corden, Senior Research Fellow, Social Policy Research Unit, University of York. Anne spent worked as a social worker in Children's Services before moving to York, where she has spent most of her career in applied social research in the Social Policy Research Unit, University of York. Anne specialises in qualitative and methodological research, in the general areas of income maintenance and regulation, disability, employment and 'welfare'. Anne's recent work has included a study for the children's hospice movement; work funded by ESRC on economic implications of death of a partner, and a study of the socio-economic implications of bereavement for Scotland. She is currently interested in employers' bereavement policies.
Plenary 4: Jan Oyebode, Clinical Psychologist and Professor of Dementia Care at Bradford Dementia Group. Jan is a clinical psychologist whose work has touched on cultural and religious aspects of bereavement, through clinical practice with older people experiencing grief in the multi-cultural context of Birmingham, through supervision of dissertations on cultural aspects of grief and through participation in a British Council collaboration with colleagues at Government College, Lahore, Pakistan.
Plenary 5 & Workshop 2 – Jan Fish Bereavement Service Coordinator, St Christopher’s Hospice. Jan is an accredited counsellor whose role includes the training and supervision of volunteers. Before joining St Christopher’s hospice she managed the City & East London Bereavement Service at Bart’s and the London NHS Trust, having wide experience in the provision of bereavement support in hospice, community and acute settings. She is also a Lecturer on the Foundation Degree in Psychodynamic Counselling and C.B.T at Birkbeck College University of London. Jan’s particular interests are grief and bereavement, brief psychodynamic therapy, couples counselling and how counselling can enable meaning making. Jan is currently working on a PhD in Palliative Care at Lancaster University.
Workshop 1: Tania Brocklehurst (MBACP accred.) and Clare Hearnshaw. Tania has been working for 10 years as an integrative counsellor, and has been in post for the last 5 years at the Hospice of St Francis in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire as their bereavement services coordinator.
Clare has been working as a nurse in cancer and palliative care for 17 years in a variety of settings including hospice, community and within hospital teams. She has recently completed her MSc in Advanced Nursing Practice (cancer) at Kings College London and currently works as Lead Nurse for Palliative Care in Luton working across community and the Luton and Dunstable University Hospital.
In 2010 Tania and Clare agreed to co-chair the Mount Vernon Cancer Network bereavement group with the belief that their experience from the NHS and charity sector combined would assist with the group’s development of best practise documents such as a pathway, assessment tool, bereavement directory and education package.
Workshop 3: Louise Winterbottom Senior Palliative Care Social Worker, St. Joseph’s Hospice. Louise currently works as a senior social worker within a palliative care team based in St Joseph’s Hospice, London. She has worked within health and social care as a manager of supported living units for people with learning disabilities and as a social worker in a variety of health related statutory settings. She has studied social work and social policy to Masters level both in the UK and under the Erasmus scheme in the Netherlands. In addition to her role within palliative care she also works part- time as Associate Lecturer or Practice Assessor for several universities. She sits on the User, Carer and Practitioner Reference Group for the School of Social Care Research at the London School of Economics. Her knowledge and interest in regard to issues relating to informal or family carers became more acute following her experience as a full time carer for her father.
Workshop 4: Jonathan Sharp, Hospice Chaplain & Spiritual Care Coordinator, Kirkwood Hospice, Huddersfield. Jonathan began working life as a Biomedical Scientist in Merseyside and West Lancs, specializing in Clinical Chemistry and then left the NHS after 9 years to train for ministry in the Methodist Church at Birmingham and study theology at Birmingham University. He has served churches in Cheshire and West Yorkshire and has engaged in chaplaincy roles in primary, secondary and tertiary education, prisons, and social care settings. He was appointed Trust Chaplain to MidYorkshire Hospitals NHS in March 2007; gained a Post Graduate Diploma in Social & Healthcare Chaplaincy at Leeds Met in 2012 and was then appointed to Kirkwood Hospice in September 2012. Jonathan has decades of experience in creating and delivering learning opportunities in subjects as diverse as public speaking, child protection and grief and loss. He is also a published poet, drama practitioner, singer/songwriter.
