Events

Grief Literacy: From Theory to Action. Presented in conjunction with the International Work Group on Death, Dying and Bereavement (IWG).

How would you know if your community was grief literate?

In 2018, the Public Health sub-group of the International Work Group on Death, Dying, and Bereavement asked themselves this question. Out of their reflective process they developed and defined the concept: Grief Literacy.

Grief Literacy is the capacity to access, process and use knowledge about the experience of loss to better support all the grievers in our communities. While grief is universal, Grief Literacy will be unique to each community. Grief literacy is a fundamental component of societies that value compassion, community, and mutual support. Broad acceptance and further development of Grief Literacy depends on open communication, identifying challenges and obstacles to promote awareness, and inspiring action aimed at creating more compassionate communities around us.

The idea of Grief Literacy has spread around the world – Grief Literacy belongs to everyone!

Grief Literacy asks us all to reflect on: How would we know if our social worlds were grief literate? Our understandings of Grief Literacy and our abilities to transform these understandings into action will be developed and deepened through the conference, Grief Literacy: From Theory to Action.

The goals of this conference are to:

·              Provide a conceptual overview of Grief Literacy;

·              Showcase examples of Grief Literacy from around the world;

·              Provide tools for participants to move ‘from theory to action’ in their own communities.