Loss and Grief centre expands
Invercargill’s Loss and Grief Centre is expanding its services to keep up with rising demand in Southland.
Founded two years ago by centre director Caroline Loo, the organisation is growing both its reach and range of services.
Loo said in 2017, there were more than 1700 requests or connections with the centre.
‘‘With us only being open three days a week, the reality was we couldn’t meet the needs our community was presenting us with.’’
Since then, the Loss and Grief Support Trust board agreed to increase the service to run five days a week a the Tay St drop-in centre.
With a third staff member being hired in March, the centre was now able to branch out further afield.
From April 30, a new support centre will be established in Gore.
‘‘There are still some fine details around a permanent location, but we’ve got a space for now,’’ Loo said.
‘‘It will be one visit a week to start with, but I can imagine very quickly it would be a up to three visits a week.’’
There would also be two support groups set up in Gore, as well as a community care service (where staff go to meet people unable to reach the drop-in centre).
The rapid growth of the centre had taken her by surprise, she said.
‘‘This has far surpassed what I had anticipated, although other people said I would be surprised by the needs out there.
‘‘We’re going to Gore now, but I’m planning that in six months we’ll be going to Lumsden and Winton once a month to service those rural communities.’’
The organisation had been filling a void that had been left vacant within Southland, she said.
‘‘There were no support groups, there was no drop-in centre ... as those things occur, you get known more and people realise its okay to talk about the issues they are struggling with in their life, so that has its own snowball effect.
‘‘As a society we’re not great at talking about our challenges, but I think Southlanders are opening up more and more all the time.’’
Loo’s journey to set up the centre was an intensely personal one, having lost her 18-year-old daughter Sara to meningococcal septicemia in 2010.
It was through her own experience that she was driven to help others going through similar pain.
‘‘I think if you had asked me before Sara died, if this was something I could see in my future, I would have said no way.
‘‘But with the grief that I experienced, I knew that what I had learned I had to do something with it – I couldn’t ignore that there were other families were going through this.
‘‘It took five years before I could even put my hand up to do this, but from that point forward its been incredibly comforting to know I’m doing something positive for other people.’’