National teleconference will focus on loss and grief

February 26, 2007

Professionals who deal with terminally ill patients and their families are invited to attend a special educational forum at Georgia Southern University.

The Hospice Foundation of America (HFA) will present its 14th annual National Bereavement Teleconference on Thursday, March 22, in the Nessmith-Lane Continuing Education Building.

‘Living with Grief: Before and After the Death” is the theme of the teleconference, which will run from 1:30 p.m. until 4 p.m.

Free and open to the public, the teleconference will be moderated by Frank Sesno, a special correspondent with CNN and a professor of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University.

The teleconference is ideal for psychologists, counselors, clergy, social workers, nurses and other health care workers, funeral directors, and educators.

Sesno and a panel of national experts will examine and discuss the following topics:

• Anticipatory grief and anticipatory mourning: approaches that professional caregivers can use to assist patients and families struggling with loss in life-threatening illness.
•  Strategies and interventional approaches that professional caregivers can use at the moment of death and in funeral rituals to help survivors cope with loss.
• Ways that the understanding of grief has changed over the last 20 years and how these changes have influenced practice.
• Research on the effectiveness of grief interventions.
•  The current debate over a new DSM diagnostic category for complicated grief.
• Current research and theory on grief reactions of professional caregivers, and ways that individuals and organizations can effectively support grieving staff and volunteers.

At the conclusion of the national teleconference, staff from the Ogeechee Area Hospice will moderate a 30-minute Q-and-A session in the Nessmith-Lane Continuing Education Building.

Space is limited, so anyone who is interested in attending the teleconference should call (912) 681-5551 to reserve a seat. The first 20 people to arrive will receive a free copy of the teleconference companion book.