The Cranbrook-Kimberley Hospice Society has announced a new grief support group intended for anyone who has experienced the death of someone significant to them.
This will be a series of 12 small, confidential group sessions every Tuesday from Sept. 17 to Dec. 3 at the downstairs library of the Centennial Centre in Kimberley. These free sessions run from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.
The sessions will be moderated by two facilitators who are volunteers from Hospice trained in bereavement facilitation.
"We have a small number of people in each group, we like to keep the groups small, maybe six at the most," explained Hospice Society bereavement coordinator Francine Guerrette-Smith. "Everything that's shared in the group is confidential and the same people go to the course together over the 12 weeks, so we don't introduce new people, it's the same people that take each other through the whole experience."
Guerrette-Smith said the program comes the work of Dr. Alan Wolfelt of Fort Collins, CO.
"He's made it basically his life's work of working with grieving people and they have a centre for loss there in Colorado," she explained. "He basically designed the whole program."
Everyone will have a book entitled "Understanding Your Grief" to work from throughout the 12 week program as well as a journal.
The class in September is geared towards women, and the women's and men's programs will be separated, but Guerrette-Smith said they are hoping men will sign up.
"We would like to have a men's group in Kimberley, and we don't need a lot, like four people is a group," she said.
Guerrette-Smith added this is the first group of its kind in Kimberley. the Hospice Society has done grief groups in the past, but they had been in Cranbrook, so there was a desire to create one in Kimberley, for people to have one in their own community there.
"This is exciting," Guerrette-Smith said. "And hopefully people will use the services so that we can expand them in Kimberley. We know the people are there, it's just reaching them. And also you don't want to talk to just anybody, so they have to have confidence that it's confidential.
"And we go through it slowly and people aren't forced to say anything, if they want to sit through the whole thing they'll still learn something."
For further information you can contact 250-417-2019, info@ckhospice.com or you can visit the new website at ckhospice.ca
