Supporting professionals

"I have come to realise, through my work, the immense impact that developing self awareness has on improving relationships both at work and at home." Jenni Thomas

Workshop venue

Workshops to explore a variety of interests are held in Buckinghamshire. For example:

Know Yourself – why is self awareness necessary
The Self and Others – Exploring your relationships
Men, Women and Communication - do we behave differently in loss?
On being a parent – following the death of children
Parenting Skills – talking to children about loss before and after it happens
Groups – organising and running loss and bereavement groups – the role of the facilitator.

Jenni co-facilitates these informal workshops with Nicki Whitworth. The groups are limited to small numbers and workshops are run as full or half days. More information on specific workshops can be found on the Future events page.

Nicki Whitworth has been working with groups and individuals as a creative therapist for over 20 years. She was group facilitator at the Denbigh Centre and a lecturer/tutor counsellor at the Lantern Trust, providing HIV/AIDS awareness training for health professionals and the Open University. Following the death of her young daughter Naomi in 2005 she co-founded the self help group SLOW to support bereaved parents. Nicki continues to work on the National Child Death Helpline based at Great Ormond Street and co-facilitates the 'Reflect, Restore, Renew' retreat for bereaved parents with Jenni. In 2011 Nicki and Jenni worked together for St Wilfrid's Hospice in Chichester, facilitating modules on the Palliative Care degree course.

Supporting people within the workplace

"We are particularly aware of the transformational change in working practices and organisational structures that is now being required within organisations and the enormous impact this can have on individuals' lives .''
Pattie Horrocks

These workshops will consider such topics as:

Living through Transformational Change at Work
Working with others - facilitating groups

These workshops can be tailored to your particular needs and can be run for groups in organisations on an in-house basis.

Bereavement Training, Education and Support for Healthcare Professionals, Volunteers and all those working with bereaved families

'Many failures could be avoided if only lessons of experience were properly learned.'
Department of Health

This training will enable professionals and volunteers to learn from bereaved families what they have found helpful and of value at a time of crisis. Professionals and volunteers working with families and children who are bereaved need support in order to offer the most appropriate care. Groups who might wish to access this training are likely to be based in nursing, medicine, midwifery, care of the dying, the charitable and volunteer sectors, counselling and social work, teaching and education, the emergency services, police and any others whose work involves supporting families and children.

A Family Perspective - where a parent is dying or has died
Supporting Parents - when their baby or child dies
Bereavement Training Workshops or Hourly Sessions
Pregnancy Loss - making difficult decisions
Longing for a Baby - the grief of infertility
When a Brother or Sister Dies
Traumatic Death - the impact on families
Suicide - a complex grief

These workshops can be designed to meet the specific needs of your group. The following is an example of a training workshop for healthcare professionals.

Supporting Parents When Their Baby Dies; example of a training workshop for healthcare professionals.

When a baby dies before or soon after birth or as a result of termination for abnormality, the way the parents are emotionally cared for will affect them deeply. They are facing one of life's greatest traumas. Recognising and responding to their very varied feelings, trying to sense what they need and helping them to make informed choices are very important elements of medical, nursing and midwifery care.

Annabelle The aim of this workshop is to address the importance of the healthcare professionals’ approach and to explore how their own feelings about loss and death inevitably impact on the care they provide to families.

The ethos of staff support, which underpins all training offered by Jenni, gives healthcare professionals the experience of being valued and better enables them to work in a collaborative way as a team.

These days provide an opportunity for a wide range of healthcare staff from different departments to consider the needs of the patients they care for in bereavement.

Debriefing and Supervision

Individual support/supervision and group debriefing sessions following a specific incident . Sessions can be arranged according to need.

For further information or to discuss any of the workshops, training or support please contact Jenni. Below are organisations that Jenni is already working with.

The Children's Trust Tadworth

The Children's Trust is based in Tadworth, Surrey and is affiliated to Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital in London. It provides care, education and therapy for children with multiple disabilities. Jenni provides group support to staff through the Angus Lawson Memorial Trust.

South London Healthcare NHS Trust.

Jenni works as a consultant to provide bereavement training and support for the professionals working in the Maternity departments. See Future Events for the SLHT Spring Maternity Conference on 28th May 2012.