The Grief Box for Carers series of six, two-and-a-half-hour workshops presented over six months by The Grief Centre of Western Australia and supported by MIFWA. It will introduce carers to the concepts of loss and grief, emotional intelligence, awareness of self and others and much more. The workshops are designed to deliver the tools to engage the carer's resilience and self-management skills to enable a compassionate response to grief for self and others.

A rich conversational styled interactive workshop series, each session will add a layer of understanding, building the picture of resilience for people who are in a caring role and affected by grief and loss, particularly ambiguous loss, which often goes unrecognised.

We understand the carer’s journey and how isolating and impactful it can be on the wellbeing of the carer. Too often grief and loss is not a topic for discussion and consequently, unattended grief causes a range of unhelpful coping strategies. This workshop series is designed to build hope and be transformational in its outcomes.

The Grief Box for Carers is specifically tailored to the caring community and those who serve this community, so carer peer workers and other supporters are welcome to participate.

Training and Key Objectives:

To open key conversations about grief and loss
To create understanding of personal and community resilience after loss
To better understand the impacts of caring on the carer
To identify and better understand and manage relationship dynamics in caring
To promote hope and build resilience in the caring community
To better understand how to advocate for self and others
To learn strategies for self-management and self-care
To recognise the rewards and compensations of caring

Core Sessions

Session 1: Losing Me, Finding Me - 20 February 2024 | 9:30am-12:30pm

Every carer experiences the costs associated with providing care to another human being, especially where there is a significant time and resource investment and where the functionality of the person being cared for is impaired, changing the relationship dynamics. It is easy to lose your sense of identity outside of the identity of carer.

This session creates an awareness of ambiguous loss and the associated grief, as well as awareness of how that grief may be attended to and why it is important that we don’t ignore it. It also will create an awareness of the identity of carer and how this can overlay our unique identity.

Session 2: Losing Them, Finding Them - 19 March 2024 | 9:30am-12:30pm

Many carers struggle with the change in relationship dynamics following the incapacitation or reduced capacity of the person for whom they are caring.

Where previously a partner may have played a very practical role in the relationship, they may now not be able to complete practical tasks. This causes an ambiguous loss in the relationship and there is a grief associated.

Further, wellness can fluctuate. Where lack of function may be extreme at one time, it may be less extreme at another. How does the carer manage these dynamic changes in power in the relationship?

This session will explore the dynamics of relationships, ambiguous loss due to changes in capacity and separating the person from the illness or physical, psychological or emotional limitation. It will help the carer to expand their awareness of others and increase their emotional intelligence.

Session 3: Discovering My Voice - 23 April 2024 | 9:30am-12:30pm

Carers are often overwhelmed by a complex health system and navigating legal responsibilities. Asking questions, responding to requests for information, advocating for consideration in systems that are complex and difficult, can be stressful and seem overwhelming.

This session seeks to create an understanding of how to use your voice to be heard in a system that is sometimes deaf. Strategies for presenting your case objectively, enlisting the support of others and navigating systems successfully will be covered. It will also create an awareness of how being emotionally intelligent can transform interactions with others and help you get what you need in a respectful way.

Session 4: Discovering my Eagle Heart of Resilience - 21 May 2024 | 9:30am-12:30pm

Carers are often stigmatised and marginalised because of their decision to provide unpaid care to the person they are supporting. This can cause feelings of isolation and disconnection from community. They can feel like they are walking on eggshells, with their sense of security threatened, causing hyper-vigilance and negative emotions.

This session will explore how we engage our resilience so that we can respond to negativity in our relationships with others and we reframe these negativities to rise above them. An uplifting and inspirational session that will spark new thinking.

Session 5: Finding Peace in the Process - 19 June 2024 | 9:30am-12:30pm

Carers are often navigating tricky emotionally charged situations and may struggle with the dynamics of strained relationships because of the difficulties associated with the caring role. It can be difficult to hold onto peace when your environment is
outside of your control. Or on the other side of the coin, the boredom of not being able to engage in what would be your normal life routines because of your caring responsibilities can also be stressful.

In this session we explore the challenges and rewards of the caring role and how we can be at peace with the process by using the tools of mindfulness, boundaries, and self-management. We will also create a comfort list to support self-soothing and stress reduction.

Session 6: Visioning My Way Forward - 16 July 2024 | 9:30am-12:30pm

As you connect with self and start to take care of your own needs as a carer, the capacity to hold hope for the future rises. Often carers are so busy coping with the grind of their caring responsibilities that they lose sight that they matter and deserve a future with the opportunity for joy and fulfilment.

This session will explore values, dreams and visions for the future, developing a vision board of what the future could possibly look for in order for a pathway to be created towards it. comfort list to support self-soothing and stress reduction.

About the Facilitator

Hayley Solich is a carer with experience delivering carer engagement training into 15 public mental health facilities in Western Australia. She is the past Carer Co-Chair of the National Mental Health Consumer & Carer Forum, and a mutli-award winning community engagement specialist and educator.

Hayley is no stranger to grief and loss, having lived through the tragic loss of a parent to road trauma in her early 20s, the same year that her two grandmothers passed away. She has now also survived the death of a child through miscarriage, her mother-in-law’s death to brain cancer, a friend’s suicide and her father and father-in-law’s passing.

“Not all loss relates to death. I first recognised that I was experiencing ambiguous loss when I sat in a carer’s group and the person next to me started speaking about their feelings in relation to their partner’s incapacitation due to a brain injury. I started to cry because I realised that my loss was the same. My partner was incapacitated due to physical and mental health conditions, and I was also sad that he could no longer do the things he used to do. Knowing someone else was experiencing the same sadness as I was felt validating,” says Hayley.

“This started a journey of healing for me because when you know what you are feeling and you can put words to it, you are then empowered to address your pain.”

Hayley joined The Grief Centre of Western Australia team in 2021 as a volunteer, chairing the Management Committee, and is now working as the Business Development Manager and an Educator.