.jpg)
Supporting bereaved older people: Evaluation of the Bereavement Supporter project Karen West and Eve Wilson
Event details
Grief: A Study of Human Emotional Experience Lecture
Cruse Bereavement Support and The ExtraCare Charitable Trust have been working together, to improve bereavement support for over 4,000 older people living in ExtraCare retirement villages and housing schemes.
Older people experience loss and bereavement as a more frequent occurrence, often at a time when they have fewer support networks, and are therefore disproportionately affected by grief. The Bereavement Supporter project has helped bereaved people get the right help at the right time, through a community based approach.
This presentation will focus on the evaluation findings, from the project’s peer support approach. The evaluation is based on data collected from ExtraCare residents, staff, Bereavement Supporter volunteers and diaries kept during the pandemic. www.cruse.org.uk/bereavement-
About the speakers
Karen West and Eve Wilson
Karen West is a professor of Social Policy and Ageing in the School for Policy Studies at the University of Bristol. She is also a Senior Fellow of the NIHR School for Social Care Research. Her research is a the intersection of housing, care and ageing studies and includes examining the ways in which specialist, later life housing environments reproduce societal expectations of later life, including those concerned with death, dying and bereavement. Her recent NIHR-SSCR funded project explores the potential of collaborative housing communities to meet the social and care needs of people as they age.
Eve Wilson is a Project Manager for Cruse Bereavement Support and has been managing the Bereavement Supporter project for the last 5 years. She previously worked as a Commissioning Officer for a local authority. Eve has over 15 years experience, both paid and voluntary, working with communities, older people and a range of charities, including a local bereavement charity.