Webinar--FCNI First Annual Conference: Grief and Bereavement--September 23, 2023

The COVID pandemic is a distressing context. Although the disease has consumed millions of lives worldwide, factors associated directly or indirectly with it have caused other kinds of devastations to the lives of individuals and challenges the conceptualization of grief in mere relational terms. Certain factors related to COVID-19 and losses are responsible for causing severe grief responses. By acknowledging loss, grief and bereavement as important factors that need to be managed over time and in an individualized manner, the church and faith community nurses can be a healing factor to ameliorate the devastation of loss created through the COVID-19 pandemic.  Nurses need to understand that the experience of grief can extend over a lifetime and the important ingredient is the weaving of the grief experience into the fabric of ones’ life. This intensifies with the potential to overlap with other life experiences and become severe if not addressed as a process and considered over time. Nurses also need to understand the impact and strategies to aid those of various faith traditions that may be different from their own.

Outcomes: Participants will be able to 

1.Identify one strategy to manage grief and bereavement over time and in an individualized manner

2. Identify one strategy for addressing loss, grief, and bereavement in a selected faith tradition.