From Denial to Resolution: Helping Your Volunteers Cope With Grief
By Susan Moscareillo, CVM
Baltimore Ronald McDonald House
Dec 4, 2002, 06:00 PST

It is an overwhelming statistic - 2.4 million people die each year in the United States. That means that 19 million people find themselves newly bereaved of friends, family - or clients they have served as volunteers.

Do you know how to help your volunteers deal with the loss of a client they have served, come to know and care about? Whether your agency serves the elderly, sick or other populations at risk, eventually you will have to tell your volunteers that someone they have served has died.

Whether unexpected or a surprise, it is one of the toughest tasks we perform as managers of volunteers. When we experienced the loss of three children within ten days at our Baltimore Ronald McDonald House, I knew I needed to learn more about grieving to help my volunteers deal with this painful situation.

I turned to one of the founders of our House, Dr. Jay Levinson, a nationally known psychologist specializing in grief and mourning. He shared with me both his "bereavement model" - the normal progression and characteristics of people who have experienced loss, as well as suggestions for helping our volunteers move through the grieving process.

Grief, the emotion we feel as we experience a loss, manifests itself in the following ways:

• Denial: At first we may need confirmation that the loss has really occurred, use euphemisms for the loss, even "bargain" to try to bring the deceased back to life.
• Anger:  towards the deceased, doctors or even God.
• Estrangement: at this stage you may feel you are "losing your mind" or feel completely out of touch with society. In our "death denying culture" (as Dr. Levinson defines it) there is great pressure to recover from our loss sooner than you are ready.
• Meaninglessness: those grieving will experience feelings associated with the new void in their life
• Acceptance: the loss is no longer questioned but is real.
• Normalization: this is the transition from loss being a dominating factor to the beginnings of rebuilding your life (or a particular part of your life)
• Resolution: rebuilding your life
  

Dr. Levinson emphasizes that the greatest encouragement we can give our volunteers as they move through the grieving process is hope, the reassurance that the painful feelings of loss will get better in time.

As managers of volunteers, we can help our volunteers facilitate this grieving process in positive, affirming ways:

• Utilizing the information above, educate your volunteers about the grieving process.
• Sympathize and empathize - this will validate the feelings and experiences of those grieving and mourning.
• Be sensitive and use correct vocabulary.
• Give permission to mourn - tell your volunteers that feeling sad is okay. If you are grieving too, share your feelings.
• Give hope for recovery.
• Keep promises of support - if you say you will call them tomorrow, do it.
• Listen, listen and listen as much as is needed.
• Encourage them to share their feelings and memories with other volunteers who knew the client.
• Tolerate anger.
• Encourage memorials - this is a positive, tangible way to acknowledge the caring we had for those who have died.
  

And while you are applying this information and the beneficial words of Dr. Levinson to your volunteers, acknowledge that you may be grieving too. Be gentle with yourself and give yourself time to heal. Take to heart the wise words that remind us that "memories are a way of holding onto the things you love, the things you are, and the things you never want to lose?"

(For further readings, Dr. Levinson recommends the works of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and Vicktor Frankel.)