The National Assistance Board’s (NAB) thrust to equip persons within the community for providing care and support for people who suffer loss continues to bear gain momentum.
Twenty-three persons from the People’s Cathedral Church will be graduating from its six-session Caring for the Bereaved programme, this Wednesday, November 19. The programme, which was conducted from May to July, this year, dealt specifically with all types of loss. Some of the areas covered include: death notification, sudden loss versus anticipated grief, children in grief, men in grief, stages of grief, still birth and complicated and ambiguous grief.
According to Deputy Director of the NAB, Deiann Sobers, this would bring the total number of cell/support groups who benefited to 27. “These persons would be able to offer care and support to bereaved persons within the church community and environs,” she said.
Ms. Sobers noted that previously, the NAB’s Bereavement Support Services provided training to persons by inviting them to yearly seminars and conferences. However, in 2002, it was decided that Barbados would be best served by decentralising its services to various organisations or groups “to create a body of persons within parishes who would be available to provide care and support for all persons who have suffered loss”.
Other churches and non-governmental organisations which participated in the programme include St. Leonard’s Anglican Church, St. Philip Anglican Church, the Barbados Cancer Society, St. Matthias Anglican Church, St. Bartholomew Church, St. Matthias Anglican Church and Mile and A Quarter Seventh Day Adventist Church.
Persons and groups interested in creating cell/support groups for assisting the bereaved, should contact the NAB at 426-3137.