Grief Support and Bereavement Care for You and Your Loved Ones

How Grief Support Can Help

Learning to cope with grief in healthy ways is an important ingredient to quality of life, which is why Cascade Health offers grief support to all patients and families. Also called “bereavement care,” grief support can help you explore, understand and develop ways to come to terms with your loss. Our bereavement coordinator can help you and your loved ones:

✅ Name your feelings so they don’t feel as overwhelming.

✅ Identify strengths, difficulties, stressors and coping mechanisms to help you adapt to your grief.

✅ Learn to communicate better with each other about your grief and related feelings of guilt, anger and sadness.

✅ Connect with others who understand how you feel.

✅ Access educational resources to help you better understand your grief.

✅ Refer you to other resources in the community if you feel you need additional help.

Grief Support Services Offered at Cascade Health

There are two types of grief in hospice: anticipatory grief, the emotional response to the impending death of oneself or a loved one, and grief following the death of a loved one. Cascade Health offers support for both types of grief at no additional cost to you for the entirety of your time on hospice and for families for up to 13 months after experiencing a loss.

We offer support in various formats to fit your individual preferences:

• Individual counseling.

• Family counseling.

• Grief education.

• Guidance for helping children cope with grief.

• Lending library of books and pamphlets on grief and loss.

• Resources mailed to bereaved family members during the year after loss.

• Two annual group memorial services, Light Up a Life and the Gathering of Remembrance, to pay tribute to lost loved ones and connect with others walking the path of bereavement.

• Grief support groups that meet weekly for ten-week sessions. Groups are currently on break and will resume after Dec. 4. New times TBD.

  Current in-person support group meetings at Pete Moore Hospice House (on break):

  Wednesdays from 11:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.

  Thursdays from 10:00 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.

  Current virtual support groups being held on Zoom (on break):

  Thursdays from 5:30 p.m. - 7:00 p.m.

  Please email the bereavement services coordinator for a Zoom link.

  To learn more about upcoming services and sign up for virtual sessions - email Sean Hughes at shughes@cascadehealth.org

When to Consider Grief Support

Grief looks different for everyone, so there is no one sign that you should consider asking for bereavement care. The short answer is, if you think you would benefit from having emotional support, please contact our bereavement coordinator, Sean Hughes, at (541) 228-3083 or shughes@cascadehealth.org. 

Some more serious signs that you should seek grief support include:

• Depression.

• Overwhelming sadness, anger, or panic attacks.

• Struggling to complete everyday tasks.

• Withdrawal from loved ones and social situations.

• A lack of support, or the support you need is more than the people in your life can offer.

• Persistent feelings of guilt, blame or regret about your relationship with someone you lost.

• Exhaustion, insomnia or lack of appetite.