Key resources on 'what can we do?'

Picking up on some of the themes from Jill Baker’s piece in the section on bereavement, the Christian charity Care for the Family has an excellent sheet of ‘Dos and Don’ts’ on How you can help bereaved parents. This may help in talking with anyone who has lost a loved one.

Anna Chaplaincy is supported by the BRF through the website The Gift of Years. The Anna Chaplaincy pages on that site give further information about their work and express the desire to expand their network of ecumenical, community-based ministry among older people. You can contact them through the site.

Death Cafes describe themselves as a ‘social franchise’ and their website provides more information as well as a facility to promote such events. A local group that has run events of various sorts to help people talk about death is BrumYODO (You Only Die Once) and their site may also provide inspiration. The Grave Talk resources from the Church of England have been referred to in an earlier section and would be very suitable for use at church-run events.

Methodist Publishing offers a printed resource entitled Seasons of My Soul (see the bibliography), for those ‘in the second half of life’. This contains materials suitable for house groups to use in discussing various topics, one of which is death and dying. The material could also be used in or adapted for Death Cafes and similar events.

Churches wanting to develop ministry in bereavement care and to become more bereavement-friendly may find the Loss and Hope website useful. Loss and Hope is a Christian coalition offering training, ideas and resources, including guidance on how to run sessions for groups of bereaved people to help them process their loss. 

Christian Perspectives on Death and Dying.  For resources to put on a larger-scale event, this site provides the outcomes from a series of conferences organised under the same title, including recordings of key speakers, and a toolkit for replicating similar events elsewhere.