27 - Why Did We Bring Bereavement Services In House To G Seller?

Since 2019 G Seller have been privileged to offer in-house bereavement services. This episode explains why the service was brought in-house, and what support is available for our bereaved families and their loved ones. 

G Seller Bereavement Services - https://www.gseller.co.uk/bereavement-support 

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Email – Liftingthelid@gseller.co.uk
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Transcript

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Hi, I'm Andy Eeley, Senior Funeral Director for G Seller Independent Funeral Directors. And we've been serving bereaved families since 1910. I'm sure you're all well aware there's lots of different myths, taboos, and misconceptions around what happens behind the scenes within the funeral profession. So we decided to put together this series of podcasts to answer those questions and hopefully dispel those myths. So please do like, share, and subscribe and send those questions. Send them to liftingthelid@gseller.co.uk and we will do our absolute best to answer them for you. It genuinely is Our Family Caring For Your Family. Welcome to the the latest episode of Lifting the Lid. Today I'm joined with Amy again, my colleague and a new person. Alison, how are you? Hello. I'm fine, thank you. Good, good, good. Welcome to the studio. The hot seat, yeah, absolutely. So we're going to be talking about bereavement care and the services that we offer at G Seller to a certain extent. So, Amy, I guess the question's to you first, as Director, driving force and so on. I mean, how and why did bereavement become a part of G Seller? Why was it so important? So we were finding, not just me and Joseph, myself and the team, we're really privileged, obviously, as we know, to look after so many families. And we were finding that after a funeral taken place, we felt like we were saying goodbye to a family, and then we then had the privilege of looking after another family, or we then wouldn't come back into contact with that family until we're looking after the memorial. We build really close, unique relationships with our families. We learn so much about the loved one and the family in such a short period of time. We were finding that once we said goodbye, it didn't feel right to us that that was our last point of contact with the family. But also, people would pop in and come and say hello because they've got that connection with a funeral director or a team member, one of the reception girls. And sometimes we felt like we couldn't give them the time that they needed. And they were coming in because, like I said, we're the last point of contact, the last person that saw their loved one, and they had a connection with us. And it dawned on us that it's coming from grief. It's loneliness. It's somebody to have a conversation with that understands what they're going through or what they have just been through. And we felt like at that point, we were then giving our families a bit of a disservice because we weren't able to give them the time because we had other commitments potentially going on or a meeting that was about to take place. And that's not right. So why should you get a level of care at this point? And then that level of care is not as high or not as good or it's slightly fragmented. That's not the G Seller way, that's not what we're about. Then myself and Joseph were looking and exploring other options and charities that we could possibly work with, other groups, bereavement groups, to see how we could help support some of our families. And once we'd done some exploring, we met some good connections. But the problem that we were then finding was then, I say, turnaround time, lead time. When people need help, they need help now. They need help tomorrow. It takes a lot of balls and guts for someone to say, I'm not okay. And once somebody recognises that, rationalises that, you need help now. So when people are saying, okay, yeah, I'll put you on the waiting list and I'll speak to you in six months. That could be a really problematic time for that person in that six months. We've also known that that's ended in very sad circumstances. But then also some people have been okay waiting that time and everything in between. So it wasn't sitting right with us, G Seller, the team, myself and Joseph. So we explored other options like, what can we do? How can we help our community? We've always said that we will always give back to our community. And again, after doing a bit of research, our florist who's been on the podcast, Karen, Jilly Flowers. Yeah, I remember Karen. She obviously had a relationship with one of our team members. We're all very close knit. And after a few conversations circulating around, we realised that the the florist supplier is married to Alison. Right. Brilliant. We're like, we do a full circle around the team. And it brought us to Alison. And then it was mainly Joseph, wasn't it? That sat and spoke with you and met you for the first time. And I guess then it feeds into you where... I don't know what your first conversation was. I wasn't privy to it. We had the idea and then...but yeah. So I knew there was an opportunity available at G Sellers and obviously they were thinking about running their own bereavement service, but not quite sure how this would work and what this would look like. I was already previously working for a bereavement service at a local hospice. So I'd been there for about five years and I was part of a bereavement team there, which was quite a big service. But I was interested in what G Seller were possibly going to open the door to. I came along and met Joseph and I suppose that's where it all began, really. It all began from there. So I think Amy's touched on it, it's really important to keep it accomplished within G Seller. So it's another service that we can offer because I think you're quite right in what you're saying. When the funeral is finished, to a certain degree, the funeral director finishes with that family, which just doesn't seem right. It doesn't feel right, does it? For some families, it is right, isn't it? But for some, and you know that they're not okay. But then it's that thing of how do I make it okay? And we can't deliver milk to all the old little Mrs Jones's can we? Because we know that that's the level of care that we want to do and it's finding that line. And you're great, aren't you? How long have you been a bereavement counsellor now in its entirety? I've been working in bereavement for about 10 years. As I said, I previously worked at a local hospice. And before that, I was... I don't know whether this is what got me to this type of work. I was a florist for about 20 years. So that was what I did. That's how I met my husband, funnily enough. But I think coming towards the end of that career for me, I knew I wanted to do something different. I knew that I wanted to go in another direction somewhere. But being a florist, obviously, you work with funeral flowers, you speak to families, you support that process in a very different way to a funeral director. But obviously, you're still part of following something through with their wishes, what meant a lot to them regarding the flowers, and hopefully completing something that they envisage and that means a lot to them at the end. So I think that's where, for me, the interest started in the support. I've got a question on that. So coming into it, I hope you don't mind me saying, but obviously you lost Mum. Yeah. Was that ever a driver? That such a close loss? Was that a feeling needing support and wanting to help others? I do think about that sometimes. Is it having a significant loss myself has that's what drove me into a direction of something. And I think there definitely is a connection. I think being a florist, working with funeral flowers and working with the family in that way. But then also having my own bereavement and working that through, at a time and it wasn't something that I ever accessed, bereavement support, because it was a long time ago and it wasn't really. It's more spoken about now, isn't it? Like bereavement support. It's less of a taboo, isn't it now? Yeah, definitely. So I think there may be a few things that led me to... I remember having the conversation with my husband. We were driving to Scotland, we were on holiday. Kids were fast, little, they were fast asleep in the car. And I said, I want a change of career. And he was like, go on, then. What are we doing? And I says, I want to train to be a counsellor. I want to go back to school. I want to study and I want to be a counsellor and go into something different. But it's going to take a period of time. I was going to ask you about training. So it's quite a transition to come from florist to counsellor. What is that period? What is the training that's involved? It depends on where you go. I knew while my youngest son was a baby, I'd got a four year window, effectively, because I knew I was going to come out of the flowers. And before he went to school, I'd got a four year gap effectively. That is my opportunity to go back to school and try something new. Hats off to you. Some people don't feel brave enough to take that plunge or that change. That's quite a change. That's what I did. So I'd got a four year window and the kids were little and I was able to do it. My husband fully supported me. He just said, do it. If you want to do it, do it. And that's where it led to then working at a local hospice because I had to volunteer there for a period of time because you have to get so many hours of one to one work before that complements what you do. And then it's part of your qualification. And then they offered me a job at the end of it. And that's led to where we are today. And I've been with G Seller for three and a half years now. I was just thinking then I was just sat here counting my fingers, like 2019, 2020 since 2019, we started the service just before lockdown happened. So we went into something brand new and developing something brand new. And then obviously we stumbled into, okay, this has got to look different for a period of time. So that was strange, doing it, not knowing that... From scratch, I guess. From scratch and then not being able to do it how you want to do it because of all the rules and the lockdown rules and that sort of thing. Yeah, not good timing. I think it's worth explaining to people, just on the actual level of support that you give them. So people might just see bereavement support and think, okay, is it a group thing? Is it a one to one? And that's something we've developed massively, isn't it? They came in thinking, what do our clients need? How do we support them? Tell me, what do we offer in terms of... So the bereavement service offers one to one counselling support. So myself and Tracy, our other counsellor at Sellers are able to provide that. I also run bereavement groups. So that is a group of people coming together who have all experienced a loss. They may have experienced a different loss, but there's something very powerful in coming together or sitting together, all talking about how you're feeling. So helping one another. Yeah. Whereas the one to one support is one to one therapy. It's about client and counsellor. It's a completely confidential space. Whereas a group, you're sitting with maybe 6 to 8 people. It's a safe space to talk, isn't it? Yeah, it's a lovely space. When it works, it works beautifully. When it works, I don't actually have to do a lot in that space. I'm there facilitating it, making sure everybody's been heard, making sure nobody's dictating the group. I might bring a topic into a group or an activity, but the beauty of the group is there's lovely friendships that have been made. It's like a community, isn't it? It's beautiful. It is. It's like a community. Because I remember once walking through Hinkley town centre on a Saturday morning on the market, and myself and Joseph, with the girls were walking down and we noticed, for example, Mrs. Jones and Mr. Smith, and we knew that they were bereaved people, but they didn't know that each other were bereaved. And it's this thing of like, they're probably pottering and wandering, feeling very lonely, collecting the groceries from the market or whatever that task may be. Actually, if only they'd known that there's more people that are suffering a loss with significant impact and that they're not the only person, which is where the groups come in, aren't they? And like you say, people now have the little friendship groups and they go down to one of our local restaurants and they often... I've got some groups members that stay friends beyond the group. So initially for a one to one work and group work, you're invited for up to six sessions. So with the one to one therapy, that would be maybe, say, fortnightly. And that can be enough for some people. So there's a nice beginning, there's a middle, and there's an end to the work. Within that space, they may have spoke about some really, really emotional, challenging things. They may speak to you about something that they've never told anybody. Obviously, it's bereavement focused. That's what it's about. Naturally, in any therapy, you go down different avenues a little bit, but we always bring it back to it is bereavement focused. But some people, if we feel it's appropriate and needed, will go beyond the six sessions, and we gauge that if more work is required. It's got to be one of my questions. What's the time frame involved? Is there a certain amount of time before we contact the bereaved after the funeral service? And then how long the sessions normally... How long is the session? The sessions are up to an hour, but it all starts initially with us meeting first at an assessment. And that allows me to gather some information from the client. It allows us to meet. It allows me to see where they are emotional. It allows me a little bit more of an insight into their mental health. And then from there, we decide on what support would be best. There's no pressure. They can go away and think about it, or we can agree to work together. And then from there, we agree times and days. Most people tend to choose on one to one therapy fortnightly. When you were working towards an end, we may stagger it out to three weekly or monthly. And that's all about how did that feel? How did that feel having that little gap? All the self care and the managing techniques that we may have explored, did it work? How did that feel? But also with that, when we do reach out to a family, we always send information, don't we? Six weeks after a funeral is taking place as initial contact to say, we have these services. But what's really key there is the fact that somebody may need help, care now. Some people may not be in that grief cycle until a year later or two years later. And we get very varying time periods, don't we? As Amy said, a letter goes out from me eight weeks after the funeral just to remind them. So up to that point, they've had information about the bereavement service, but in the chaos of where they are at that time, it's not something that may have been remembered. We can refer as the funeral director involved in the moment of the funeral. Sometimes we get people that are struggling, so I know we can refer to you. From our perspective, it's great to have that support there. Who can access this? We are only available to the families that we look after. So within that family, it can be friends, it can be family members. But yeah, it's available to the families that we've looked after at G Sellers. Okay. And when you've mentioned an assessment, so you contact the family, they come in to see you. So what does an assessment entail? What is an assessment? So assessment is... There's a number of things that go into an assessment. Initially, it's about us meeting. As Amy said earlier, for some people to say, I need help is a massive thing. And coming back into the environment as well is a big thing that we found, haven't we? Coming back into the building. Yeah, it's like a milestone in itself. Definitely. So it allows us to meet. It allows the person that's accessing the support to see where the work would begin. If somebody wants to see a group room and the room is available, we'll go up to the Barsby Suite and we'll have a look at a group room. And obviously the assessment takes place in the one to one room where the therapy would take place in. So they get to see what that looks like. I gather, as I said before, information as to where they are, how they're feeling. A lot of one to one space and the assessment space, it can be very emotional. So we do it at the client's pace. The assessment usually takes about an hour, but with an assessment, you always give a little bit of time. I always give a little bit of time extra just in case they need that little bit more time after the assessment. We go through how we would work together. I go through how I work. We look at the confidentiality agreement that's put in place between counsellor and client. And yeah, it's just a space of getting the information, seeing that with the appropriate service. I think that's quite a big one because some people can come that have other presenting issues that may need to explore that before they need to explore this. And that's why we need the right people on board. Because as funeral directors, we don't have that skill set that Alison and Tracy have. You guys have had the training. You've seen the signs and symptoms and you can say, actually, yeah, okay, I can see that you're suffering but right now this isn't the right thing for you because we need to do X, Y, and Z. Definitely. And from then, our services have grown, haven't they, over the years? So we've started just with Alison, just with you, and then it's grown to Tracy, hasn't it? And now we're going into schools and businesses and the services. You and Alison, you and Tracy have got each other to lean on and support each other, haven't you? Yeah, which is brilliant. Because also, if we have more than one member of a family access to support, then there's two of us that can manage that. There's Tracy that could see one member and I could see another member. So that works really well. So the confidentiality piece that you mentioned there, absolutely. You don't even talk to us about the families that perhaps we've looked after. You've worked elsewhere in its capacity. How do we differ? How does G Seller differ, too? Well, obviously, my previous job was as a in the bereavement service, so you can't necessarily compare it to another bereavement service in a sense. I suppose waiting time, we have a much shorter waiting time. But we don't have a waiting time. No, we can generally see somebody for an assessment, depending on what our diaries are like, within 2-3 weeks sort of thing. And it's a shame that other agencies have such a big waiting list, but that's how a lot of places are at the moment. But I think what makes us different in a sense for bereavement is we are bereavement specialists in a way, as in the whole of G Sellers, and the therapy is focused on their bereavement. And as I said, naturally in therapy, you can go down different avenues, but we always need to bring it back to what we're here for to support their grief and their loss. Yeah, no, I agree. I think it's something quite unique for a funeral director business to be able to offer this. And of course, you give that level of care to families. I got one final question and it always intrigues me. What about yourself? When you're soaking up an awful lot of other people's grief, just like we are. But perhaps in some respects more so because you got all these other little points that you're talking that present. How do you handle that? Well, obviously training. That's a huge part of what we do and the way the skills that you learn to not fully absorb everything. You could take it all really personally, every single thing, couldn't you? But the work is confidential, so you also can't talk to anybody about it. Yeah, exactly. Great peer support with Tracy. I think that's really valuable because you can pick up off each other if it's been a challenging day. I also have regular supervision. That's once a month, and that's with a qualified counsellor and supervisor. So that is something that spoke about within the client counsellor contract that if I am taking something to supervision from a session, confidentiality is always kept key in that area as well. So it would be a client has brought, we explored it this way. But also there's a space for me to go and talk about if something has affected me because we're only human and some clients do trigger your own stuff. And there's also my own personal counselling beyond that, which you need to check into if you know if there's a need for that as and when thing. So it's a layer. There's the peer support with Tracy the other counsellor, supervision and your own private counselling. So yeah, you try your best. I'd say you won't get it right all the time. But I suppose you guys can experience that as well. I think you've been a great help to a lot of the teams subliminably I mentioned you on the last podcast when we were talking about self care. And I was like, well, if it wasn't for Alison, I don't think I'd have known what mine actually was. She's probing like, what are you doing to look after yourself? I do harp on a lot about self care, and I wouldn't say I'm always perfect myself, but we try. We try. Yeah, definitely. Amy, Alison, thank you very much. No, thank you. Really good insight. Again, it's interesting the piece about a counsellor for a counsellor in some respects. Yeah, we're no different from anyone else. We still need that support as well. But you just try and take your own advice sometimes. Yeah. Easier said than done sometimes. Thank you both. I think we can safely say that's a great insight and great introduction to Alison as well. So any questions at all, please do send them to liftingthelid@gseller.couk. And yeah, like, share and subscribe, and certainly, we'll see you next time.