Grief Support: School, Workplace (Video 3:57)

We all know that death can and will come at any time. However, many times we don’t expect it and may not be prepared for how to respond. When I was school principal of a PK-8^th grade school, a speeding car drove over the curb during student dismissal time. This massive nightmare of steel plowed through a group of giggling students heading for home. Staff, students, and I witnessed a boy’s body fly into the air and land with a life-destroying thud in the middle of the street.

Time stood still as we endured the horrific sounds of our rapidly beating hearts absorbing what had happened. This young member of our school family was tragically killed before our eyes. We joined together as a community untangling the tremendous grief, a first time for most, through heartfelt expressions of painful feelings. Ongoing healing included counseling support, a school memorial service, and many classroom conversations about death, a topic that is too often ignored until a crisis comes.

As adults in the workplace, our co-workers also die in expected and unexpected circumstances, leaving us with similar experiences of grief and loss that impact us as a work community. For many, the workplace staff becomes a family grieving in various ways as they experience a shared loss.

Comforting co-workers who are struggling with grief symptoms can be uncomfortable for some people. While they may have good intentions, they often lack confidence regarding what to say or do that will help mourners adjust. At the workplace, many staff members may feel that only experts should handle grief support. Worried that they might cause hurt feelings, they may remain distant from those mourning openly. Holding back their support, however, can negatively impact colleagues who are suffering and looking for healing.

Although counselors and others trained in grief management play an important role, colleagues can also make beneficial contributions. Before tragedies occur, individuals of the organization should have workshops and meetings at workplaces and include time for sharing strategies everyone can incorporate to alleviate grief as a community. Implementation of these strategies can help create workplace cultures where everyone feels inspired to support one another in whatever ways they can during times of grief. Managers should plan to have an open forum where employees feel free to discuss their emotions, offer assistance to the families of the deceased, and understand that people grieve in different ways.

This video provides suggestions for coping with workplace grief. It focuses on death of a colleague in the workplace. Jessica Barton of R3 Continuum reviews the different reactions to various types of death in the workplace and offers reminders of positive teaching points.

Frances Shani Parker, Author

Becoming Dead Right: A Hospice Volunteer in Urban Nursing Homes is available in paperback and e-book editions in America and other countries at online and offline booksellers.

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