ALISON RENNIE

A project that helps people deal with the grief of losing a loved one has had its funding extended for another year.

Renfrewshire Bereavement Network was created last August and is made up of organisations with the skills and experience to support people in their time of grief.

Paisley’s Accord Hospice, St Vincent’s Hospice in Howwood, Renfrewshire Health and Social Care Partnership, Renfrewshire Council and RAMH came together to pilot the new service for six months.

And it has been such a success with 161 sessions offered that funding has been extended for at least another year.

The service provides a single point of contact for bereaved families across the region.

Joy Elliott, Accord patient and family support team lead and also Renfrewshire Bereavement Network project manager, said: “I am really pleased that the evaluations of the pilot has shown that the project has worked well.

“Grief is a long term issue and the funding will allow the project to continue to support people in Renfrewshire for longer.”

Clients have said the service has helped them deal with their grief over the death of a loved one.

One client said: “Talking to my bereavement support worker has helped by boosting my confidence and lessened my anxiety by talking about my feelings,” while another added: “Contacting the Renfrewshire Bereavement Network was a positive experience, they were kind and caring and explained the processed clearly.”

Another person helped by the service said: “The support has helped me understand what I am going through is totally normal.

“My bereavement support worker was wonderful.”

There are two counsellors, seven volunteer bereavement support workers, eight volunteer admin workers and two admin staff working for the service.

The service is based at Gleniffer Outreach building in the grounds of the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley.

When restrictions were lifted, there were some face- to- face sessions but many have taken place over Zoom or phone calls.

Joy said: “Obviously the pandemic has affected so many different areas of our lives and we have transferred everything online so that we can work with telephone, Zoom and WhatsApp at this point.

“Hopefully through time the groups will come back and we will be able to do face to face.

“We run bereavement groups, we have a walking group and all of these things are how we help to support people through grief.

“Anybody can phone, we are here for anybody regardless of their background it doesn’t matter we are here to support them.”

Joy said many people had reported feeling isolated as a result of the pandemic and the service was there to support them.

“If you look at what we would normally be encouraging people to do is to connect up with friends, to be with family, to pursue their interests, their sports and all of that has been shut down,” she explained.

“If there is one word that I have heard so much over the last 12 months I’ve got to say it was the word isolation. The isolation that people have found in their grief has been very, very difficult.”

She said there was no handbook for grief and that people dealt with things in different ways.

Joy added: “Grief is very unique and is individual to every single person, there’s no right and no wrong in it.

“One big thing is that grief doesn’t understand time, it doesn’t understand if it’s a week, two months or five years.

“There isn’t an end to grief, grief is very much about learning to live with it and it can take months actually before the reality of it really can hit home.

“It’s a bit like thunder and lightning we can see the flash and then the noise comes later and I think that’s very much in our head.

“We know somebody has died but emotionally it takes time before that actually comes through.”

To contact the Renfrewshire Bereavement Network, phone the freephone number 0800 038 6020, email support@renfbn.org.uk or go online to www.renfbn.org.uk.

Grief is a long term issue and the funding will allow the project to continue to support people for longer