-- Grief support and education for healthcare workers is now available via text message. This week Seattle-based start-up, Grief Coach, announced it’s new service for healthcare providers who have been overwhelmed by both personal and professional losses during the pandemic.
Employers in the healthcare sector see an urgent need to provide bereavement training and support to their nurses and social workers, and recognize that providing this support can improve employee morale, reduce burnout, and eliminate avoidable workplace errors. A May 2021 McKinsey report warned that nearly a quarter of nurses in the US are considering leaving their work on the front lines, as a result of increasing demands and psychological strain during the pandemic. Many have lost patients, coworkers and in some tragic cases, loved ones too. Grief Coach Founder & CEO, Emma Payne, is quoted saying: “We have relied on our healthcare workers to care for us. Now we need to care for them, as the emotional toll of COVD-10 continues to escalate.”
The idea for providing grief training for nurses and healthcare workers via text message was an obvious next step for Grief Coach, that has been delivering personalized text-based bereavement care for 2.5 years. Their affordable, accessible solution has been shown to be effective for people grieving a death, and also includes grief education and tips for friends and family who want to help. Payne, says, “our team sees every day how grief education and support leads to a reduction in illness, anxiety, sleep issues, and substance use, so it makes sense to add a service for the courageous clinicians, bereavement managers, nurses and other healthcare workers who have faced an overwhelming number of losses this year.”
The new text-based education service delivers messages customized based on age, relationship, cause of death and more. Grief Coach partnered with renowned author and psychotherapist, Megan Devine, to create a specialized text series that focuses on professional caregivers. Devine and her company, Refuge In Grief, have extensive experience providing bereavement training for clinicians. Her wisdom and experience helped to shape this new text message series that offers practical, personal guidance to help healthcare workers process and manage their grief.
Gina Kornfeind, the Bereavement Coordinator at UCLA Mattel Children’s Hospital, has seen how valuable Grief Coach’s text support can be. She’s spent 11 years supporting parents whose children receive care at her hospital, and over 30 years working in bereavement support. As a bereavement professional, Gina knows that grieving is raw and painful to witness. She talks about how nurses and social workers are called on to address suffering every day, and to witness what may be the most catastrophic and stressful event in a person’s life. “It’s no wonder,” Gina says, “that our nation’s care providers are experiencing compassion fatigue and burnout. I think that caregivers like me constantly feel that what we’re doing isn’t enough, and that all the responsibility for providing support sits with us. Instead we need to feel supported ourselves, and confident that we have adequate grief support resources to share. Grief Coach is a game changer.”
Grief Coach’s text-based bereavement training for nurses and healthcare providers service launched this week. To find out more about Grief Coach visit https://grief.coach
Release ID: 89031328