Bereavement Professional

  • 1.  Bereavement Team

    Posted 06-03-2021 12:11 PM
    Good Morning Hive Mind, 

    My organization recently went from a single Bereavement Coordinator to two, and my questions is this: For those of you who work as part of a team of Bereavement Coordinators or alongside others with the same role, how do you handle division of duties? Are there certain tasks or services each of you are assigned to, how do you divvy up clients and administrative tasks, etc? We have a 50 mile radius service area that we've divided by East and West, but that's the only distinction, and I wondered how others function in their job duties as part of a bereavement team. Thanks in advance!

    -Merrin


  • 2.  RE: Bereavement Team

    Posted 06-03-2021 12:35 PM

    Congratulations on having a bereavement TEAM now!  We were able to add a second person about a year and a half ago and it's been wonderful!  We've tried to divide up which bereaved we're following by location of death (inpt v. home v. facility).  But we both are really flexible in trying to keep things "balanced" for each of us, especially with more complicated situations.  Communication is vital.  As far as tasks we try to divide that up as equally as possible (she's .6 and I'm fulltime, so that's taken in to consideration).  No perfect way to do it, but if you make every effort to communicate openly it will work.  I always include her on any emails I send re:bvt and she does the same so we're aware what's going on with each other.  The best thing is that there's another bvt counselor to debrief with!! Having worked as both a social worker and now a bereavement counselor, they are very different roles, so nice to have a kindred spirit in the department! Good luck!


     

    Lori M.Williams, MSW, LISW

    Social Worker/Bereavement Counselor

    St. Luke's Hospice Duluth

     

    220 North 6th Ave East | Duluth, MN 55805

    Phone: 218-249-6102| Fax: 218-249-6166

    Cell: 218-349-4397

    Lori.Williams2@slhduluth.com

    www.slhduluth.com/hospice

     

     

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  • 3.  RE: Bereavement Team

    Posted 06-03-2021 12:58 PM

    Agreed, congratulations!  It's so helpful to hear about how others have divided and organized their work with growth spurts! 

     

    A few years ago we divided the work between clinical and non-clinical. We have a full time non clinical coordinator who works on all of our publications, mailings, spreadsheets/tracking, support group room and event space reservations, supplies for groups and events, message management, maintaining meeting notes and agendas, technical support for virtual groups, maintain wait lists and attendance records, as well as all of the few remaining paper files, manage volunteers and their information, and more. It's fantastic as so much of it had really detracted from the clinical focus and was a struggle for those that wanted to focus on facilitation of groups and counseling.

     

    We have three counselors who divide their work as you note, according to region, but watch to ensure it's balanced as it can be misleading to use landmarks when one area may be more population dense than another.

     

    Our coordinator funnels requests to the right counselors and at times, to ensure timely response, it may be assigned to a different counselor should one be on PTO.

     

    Lastly, they all facilitate drop in groups and rotate who facilitates our closed, curriculum based groups so each gets a break while special events (workshops or memorial events) they all generally participate in with few exceptions.

     

     

    Joelle Osterhaus, MSW, LCSW, LICSW, ACHP-SW (she/her)
    KPNW Hospice & Palliative Care Psychosocial Services Manager

     

    "Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of overcoming it." - Hellen Keller

     

    Kaiser Permanente Northwest
    Continuing Care Services 2701 NW Vaughn St., Ste. 140, Portland, OR 97210-5344

    Cell Phone: (503) 312-0819
    Main Office: (503) 499-5200

    Fax: (503) 499-5535

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  • 4.  RE: Bereavement Team

    Posted 06-07-2021 09:30 AM
    Thank you Joelle! I appreciate your insights. It is totally misleading sometimes with the division of work by region because of population density - exactly. Even with the amount of activity from week to week. The pendulum seems to swing between our east and west territories - one week I will have a tiny number of referrals and my colleague will have a mountain, so we just try to share the load and that seems to work well! Keeping lines of communication open constantly is the key! It sounds like you have a well balanced team over there, with folks in the area that they feel most called to, which is something we've chatted about as well. Myself and my counterpart divide administrative tasks by our territories, but also share the load in that as well when it becomes unbalanced. The administrative side can definitely feel like it's taking away from being out with our bereaved clients at times, so I think it's great that you have personnel designated for that specifically.

    I'd love to maybe chat sometime and learn more about your "closed, curriculum based groups". As we are transitioning back to small, in-person offerings, we are discussing how to control the group size with RSVP without it necessarily feeling exclusive or as though we can't serve folks, so we've been discussing marketing as well in that regard. 

    Thanks again! 
    -Merrin


  • 5.  RE: Bereavement Team

    Posted 06-07-2021 09:35 AM
    Thank you, Lori! We are very excited!! Especially whenever we have a "department meeting". Eeek! :) 
    Keeping those lines of communication open constantly has been vital for us as well to ensure that we're sharing the load and one person isn't over or under booked.
    Dividing up which bereaved you're following by location makes total sense and something we haven't considered. It does work out that way in a sense with our east/west division in terms of specific facilities located in those areas, but it sounds like one person keeping track of all home patients and their loved ones might give a unique insight into those situations as well. Interesting! We've chatted about how, as the organization continues to grow - if there remains just two of us - if there is another way we could be dividing work.

    Thanks again! 
    -Merrin