GBRIG
Grampian Bereavement Resource and Interest Group
About the Group
Flowing from a conference held in Aberdeen on 30 October 2006, the group has gathered together representatives from healthcare researchers, NHS Staff, Macmillan Nurses, voluntary organisations, funeral directors and others interested in developing a resource for bereavement care in Grampian.
THE AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF THE GROUP
Aim
Promote good practice, research and education in bereavement and bereavement care in Grampian.
Objectives
1. Develop a dynamic and sustainable interest group of practitioners, researchers and educationalists from voluntary and statutory services
2. Provide a central resource for expertise in bereavement care both locally and nationally
3. Manage an on-going listing and review of available resources
4. Advocate need for high quality bereavement care at policy and practice levels
2007: Establish GBRIG website as central shared resource for group
2008 - 2009:
• Seek and collate available information on the nature and scope of education on bereavement and bereavement care for occupations and voluntary groups in Grampian
• Seek and collate available information on the nature and scope of bereavement care practice by all those involved in Grampian
• Work to develop clearer understandings of fundamental issues e.g. what we mean by bereavement care; how best to identify those in need; who should provide such care; how should they be educated?
• Promote GBRIG and its work at conferences and other events
• Support and share work by special interest groupings within GBRIG e.g. research; policy work
The Robert Gordon University
Colin Macduff
School of Nursing and Midwifery,
Robert Gordon University,
Garthdee Road
Aberdeen
AB10 7QG
Tel: 01224 262647
E-mail: c.macduff@rgu.ac.uk
Occupational Role: Lecturer
Interests around bereavement care issues:
My interest in bereavement issues goes back to my experiences in clinical nursing where we tried to optimise peoples' experiences of death and bereavement, often in very difficult circumstances. There has always seemed scope to improve this aspect of care and BRIGG offers the chance for Grampian to take forward a valuable multidisciplinary initiative. Recently I have been influenced by the work of Ted Bowman who has given me insights into broader understandings of loss. I enjoy the literary dimension to this e.g. poetry is a medium of particular potency in this context.
Interests I hope to pursue/develop though BRIGG
As a researcher, I am interested in contributing to local/national studies of bereavement and bereavement care. As an educator, I am interested in learning more about how different occupational groups are prepared to deal with bereavement issues. Especially as it is such a generic issue. Finally as a parent I am interested in how we help children learn about this aspect of life.
Audrey Stephen
Room H303
Faculty of Health and Social Care
Robert Gordon University
Garthdee Road
Aberdeen
AB10 7QG
Tel: 01224 263150
E-mail: a.i.stephen@rgu.ac.uk
Occupational Role: CSO Research Training Fellow
Interests around bereavement care issues:
I have a background in nursing and became involved in caring for dying patients and their families from an early stage in my career.
I am currently involved in researching bereavement and bereavement care. Along with colleagues at RGU I have carried out an interview study that examined bereavement care practice across the sectors in Scotland. The study report is available on this website or through the following link: www.rgu.ac.uk/files/Pete%20Purple%20Final%20Report.pdf
This work is being used by the Scottish Executive Health Dept to inform the development of national policy for bereavement care.
I have recently been awarded a Research Training Fellowship from the Chief Scientist Office (CSO) of the Scottish Executive. I will be researching the provision of bereavement care to older people by NHS services. Data from this interview study will inform the development of a protocol for the management of bereavement across the sectors. The work will be carried out for my PhD thesis.
Interests I hope to pursue/develop though BRIGG
Through BRIGG I hope to develop my research interests by collaborating with practitioners to ensure the research can be beneficial to members of the public and care staff. I am also interested in exploring ways of making grief less hidden and encouraging people in general to be more open about discussing it and sharing experiences.
Peter Wimpenny
Associate Director
Joanna Briggs Collaborating Centre
Faculty of Health and Social Care
School of Nursing and Midwifery
The Robert Gordon University
Garthdee Road
Garthdee
Aberdeen
AB10 7QG
Te1: 01224 262650
Email p.wimpenny@rgu.ac.uk
I am Associate Director of the Joanna Briggs Collaborating Centre, a collaboration between The Robert Gordon University and NHS Grampian, as part of the worldwide Joanna Briggs Institute ( www.joannabriggs.edu.au ), which is focused on evidence-based practice. With a team of staff I undertook a systematic literature review on bereavement and bereavement care for the Scottish Health Service and then a consultation with staff in Scotland involved in bereavement care (2006/7). This review really opened my eyes to issues around bereavement and bereavement care and the need for better co-ordination and research and GBRIG is one way we can begin to address this. As a nurse I had encountered bereaved relatives on many occasions but now appreciate how much I didn't know! I also facilitate a CHAIN (Contact Help Advice and Information Network) group related to loss and bereavement and supported by Macmillan as part of their Palliative Care Network ( http://chain.ulcc.ac.uk/chain/ ).
Fiona Work
H520
School of Nursing and Midwifery,
Robert Gordon University,
Garthdee Road
Aberdeen
AB10 7QG
Tel: 01224 262956
E-mail: f.work@rgu.ac.uk
Occupational Role: Lecturer
Interests around bereavement care issues:
No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. I keep on swallowing'(Lewis 1996p. xv)
Fiona has a strong background in community health having worked as a community nurse, midwife and health visitor. Currently she works as a nursing lecturer at The Robert Gordon University.Fiona is in her third year of an MPhil/ PhD study entitled ‘an exploration of male grief: a hermeneutic phenomenological study'. As an active grief counsellor and lecturer, she is particularly interested in the field of grief, death dying and bereavement. The seed for wishing to engage in this research was sown after finding distinct differences in the overall counselling experience between male and female clients. The male clients appeared to respond to the person-centred environment and had less contact overall. Hours of supervision still have not answered the rationale for this for her and the literature on the topic gave no definitive answers. Studies appeared to be dominated by gender comparison, stereotyping and there was a dearth of studies focusing on the unique experience of male grief. Consequently, Fiona wishes to explore the lived experience of male grief using their own unique grief stories as data to fill that gap in the literature and perhaps lend some guidance for practitioners in the field of male grief.
Interests I hope to pursue/develop though BRIGG
As a researcher, I am interested in contributing to local/national studies of bereavement and bereavement care. As an educator, I am interested in networking with others within the wider field of bereavement.
NHS Grampian
Pat Barclay
Rosie Bird
Fred Coutts
Chaplains' Office
Aberdeen Royal Infirmary
Foresterhill
Aberdeen
AB25 2ZN
Tel: 01224 553166
E-mail: Fred.Coutts@nhs.net
Occupational Role: Head of Spiritual Care, NHS Grampian
Francis Edwards
Shona Grant
Health Centre
Rannes Street
Insch
AB52 6JJ
Tel: 01464 821510
E-mail shona.grant@nhs.net
Occupational Role: District Nurse/Team Leader
Shona is District Nurse/Team Leader, Bennachie Team covering bases of Insch, Rhynie and Strathdon. She registered as a nurse in 1981 and her experience has largely been in community. She is especially interested in oncology and cancer care and studied to gain a degree in cancer and palliative care in 2006. Closely linked is the care of the bereaved which she studied more deeply in one of the degree modules. Shona's nursing role as well as personal experience, allows her to facilitate care of the bereaved with whom she has had close contact. This led her to have an interest in joining the GBRIG group.
Allan Leslie
Dr Gordon Linklater
Margaret Ritchie
Ward 40
Aberdeen Royal Infirmary
AB25 2ZN
Tel 01224 559895
E-mail margaret.ritchie@arh.grampian.scot.nhs.uk
Occupational role: Macmillan neuro-oncology nurse specialist
My background is in neurosciense nursing. I have been the Neuro - Oncology nurse in Grampian for almost 8 years, my work is hospital based predominantly with patients with malignant brain tumours and their families. I work as a member of the multidisciplinary team caring for this group of patients from the time of diagnosis in the neuroscience department ward 40, during treatment radiotherapy / chemotherapy, neuro- radiology (CT and MRI scans), it is intesting and challenging work supporting people to live with their illness. I was invited to join NHS Grampian working group on the care of the dying and bereaved 3 years ago and from this I developed an interest in bereavement.
Dr Paul Sclare
Paul Sclare works as a consultant in adult psychiatry in Aberdeen, and is also on the management committee of the Aberdeen branch of CRUSE.
E-mail: paul.sclare@nhs.net
Liz Tait
Moray CHSCP
Spynie Hospital
Duffus Road
ELGIN
Tel: 01343 567116
E-mail: liz.tait@nhs.net
Occupational Role: Clinical Governance Co-ordinator
Liz is a registered nurse with many years experience across a wide variety of nursing and hospital management posts and for the last 10 years has had an interesting and challenging role in Clinical Governace and Risk Management. Although a Grampian wide role her main base is in the Moray area. Her responsibilities cover providing assurance to the NHS Grampian board that the quality and standards of patient care provided by all NHSG staff is of the highest standard. This includes ensuring that patients who are at the end stages of their lives receive the best possible care and that their families and friends are supported appropriately. Liz has a particular interest in sudden and suspicious death and works closely with other agencies to support families through these difficult times. In a voluntary capacity Liz works with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and travels abroad to support and assist British families who have lost relatives through recent disasters including war zones. Because of the nature of the day to day work Liz is involved in she finds the GBRIG group a useful forum to discuss various issues that affect the whole organisation
Other Organisations and Individuals
Dr Stuart Hannabuss
E-mail:
stuarthannabuss@btinternet.com
Dr Stuart Hannabuss' interest in bereavement has taken shape in several ways. One has been through direct involvement with friends and family over the years. Another has been through growing engagement with spiritual care and chaplaincy work - serving on the local NHS Spiritual Care Committee and embarking on volunteer chaplaincy. Yet another derives from a long-standing interest in ethics and moral philosophy, and the ways in which these overlap with and often exist in tension with faith and belief and with the law. He serves on two NHS ethics committees - Clinical Ethics and Medical Research Ethics.
Also driving his interest in bereavement are the ways in which people engage in sense-making through story and narrative. His research has included ethnographic and phenomenological investigation into cultural change in organizations, into epistemological warrants by means of which (or in defiance of which) people reason things through and make decisions, and into the ways in which people, in health and in sickness, in faith and with no faith, try to make sense of reality using symbol and metaphor. These various strands come together in, among other fields, the area of bereavement where existential values and beliefs are not only at work but are often de/reconstructed in idiosyncratic and interpellative ways.
Stuart is an active member of Humanist Society Scotland and is involved in these bereavement and end-of-life issues with and for them. Currently he is an independent researcher and writer, reviewer and musician living in Aberdeen, having for many years covered law and ethics, information management and politics at Aberdeen Business School and cultural politics and aesthetics at Gray's School of Art.
Mark Shaw
Mark Shaw Funeral Services
347 George Street
Aberdeen
AB25 1EQ
01224 640008
www.shawfunerals.com
E-mail: markbshaw@supanet.com
Mark Shaw first became involved in the funeral profession 17 years ago and
after working for various national and independent firms now runs his own
firm. As a funeral director he works with those facing bereavement in a
every circumstance and at a very practical level. He hopes to contribute to
the group a practical view point regarding the immediate experiences and
needs of the bereaved and to learn from the group about the work done by the
wide range of people also involved before and after bereavement."
Eileen Wheeler