This week I heard about the Loss Project, a peer-to-peer grief service set up in response to the huge numbers of people who have lost someone since the coronavirus pandemic hit.
Lockdown and social distancing has meant not being able to attend funerals or memorials, or give and receive support from family and friends in the way that we are used to when someone we love dies. Stretched bereavement services means people can miss out on the counselling and support that they need to process their grief.
The Loss Project doesn’t replace a professional counsellor, but at a time when people are often feeling more alone than ever, it gives someone who is grieving a community to talk to and people to listen to them.
This is facilitated through free online forums called ‘Spoon Rooms’, where you log on and chat with people who are going through similar situations. You wave a wooden spoon when you want to talk, but there’s no pressure. It’s done in partnership with another organisation called Camerados which actually started back in 2015 as a bunch of local community spaces where anyone could go and have a chat, a drink and connect with other people.
Like everything else, these groups have had to go online but they seem to really fulfil a need during these strange times, and the language used to describe this approach is fantastic:
“People just alongside each other, no fixing, no agenda, just there.”
If you want to read more about The Loss Project or find out when the next online session is, here’s the website: www.thelossproject.com/
Please do have a look at our Compassionate Leave and other P3 policies which may help if you experience a bereavement, via the P3 Portal: https://staffhome.p3charity.org/.
Thanks
Mark
On a lighter note, the results are in from the IT survey, and the guys are smashing it!
Next Thurs is the UN International Friendship Day. We’ve already seen the P3 pixie at work this week (below) so if you were thinking of springing a kind gesture on a colleague, this is the time to go for it!
If you need any inspiration, this year UNICEF
have launched an anti-bullying campaign for Friendship Day, asking young people to find small ways to be kind to one another.
The K-Pop band BTS has even made this
sweet music video promoting the message.
