GRIEF RESOURCES

When someone close to us dies, it hurts. Even though we have said "goodbye" at the funeral, we may find it difficult to cope with the way ahead once the busy time is over, and friends and relatives have returned to the busyness of their lives.

Bereavement Support Service

Dil's Funeral Services has for many years offered a Bereavement Support Service, through which we extend the care we give to the families we serve. Coordinated by Thea Braddock, an experienced and caring support person, it provides an opportunity to talk about your feelings in a safe and relaxed environment.

Support

Support in bereavement involves helping people accept and adjust to their loss, and to experience the pain of grief in an atmosphere of friendliness and understanding. People are helped to find and use resources in their own community. We may find it difficult to talk to our own family or friends, so to have a friendly "outsider", trained to listen and to help us find ways of coping with our feelings can be very helpful - even months or years after the death of our loved one.

Ring us on 415 8720, or send an email and we will get Thea to contact you.

Children and Grief

Children need to grieve, just as adults do, and their reaction to the death of a close relative or friend will vary from child to child. They may need help to cope with everything that is happening, and the Bereavement Support Service is available for them too.

Mutual Help Groups

People sometimes feel that only someone who has experienced a similar loss to theirs and has "been through it and survived" can really understand. There are many groups in the community (eg Cot Death, Yellow Ribbon (suicide), …) where common thoughts and feelings can be expressed among people who have walked the same path.

We can put you in touch with an appropriate group.

Reading Material

You may not feel like reading much immediately after the death of your partner, parent, child, close relative or friend, but as time passes you may want to draw on others' accounts of how they managed in circumstances similar to yours.

There are leaflets and books available from our Bereavement Support Service, dealing with general issues, as well as practical and specific ones such as financial and social problems, managing your time, or living alone.

All you have do to is ask.

Community Education

Bereavement Support Service is a division of Dil's Funeral Services. Our Company has been involved in education on grief, bereavement and funerals for many years. Talks have been given to schools, church groups, caregivers, service clubs, social workers, medical professionals and the general public.

People who have attended these seminars have invariably come away feeling much more relaxed - and certainly better informed - about a subject (and life experience) that is often the source of anxiety or unhelpful myth.

If you or a group you have contact with would like to have someone talk to them, please don't hesitate to contact us.