ABSCo Conference 2017 - “Death and Bereavement in the digital age”

ABSCo Conference 2017

11^th & 12^th July 2017, Trinity University College, Leeds

“Death and Bereavement in a Digital Age”

Conference aims:

To look at the impact of the internet and social media on the experience of death and bereavement.

To look at ways in which technology and social media can be used to support bereaved people.

Conference chair: Kate Gowshall, St Joseph’s Hospice, Hackney

Programme:

DAY ONE

DAY TWO

Plenary Speaker Biographies

Paula Kiel is a PhD candidate at the London School of Economics and Political Science in the Department of Media and Communications. Her PhD project explores practices of preparing for post-mortem online communication. She is a member of the Association of Internet Researchers and the Death Online Research Network. Her paper “The Emerging Practices of the Collective Afterlife: Multimodal Analysis of Websites for Post-mortem Digital Interaction” won the Best Student Paper Award at the 2017 Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) conference. Her research interests include: death online, the Internet and computer-mediated communication, visual media, media and everyday life and technological innovation. 

For more information visit: http://www.lse.ac.uk/media@lse/WhosWho/PhdResearchers/PaulaKiel.aspx

James Norris is the founder of the Digital Legacy Association and DeadSocial.org.

The Digital Legacy Association was set up to support end of life, funeral and palliative care professionals in areas relating to digital legacy and digital assets. They do so through training, campaigning, events and providing best practice frameworks.

DeadSocial.org provides tools, tutorials and resources for the general public. They empower people to make better end of life decisions and to utilise technology in this process when it is relevant for the individual to do so. DeadSocial has been featured in a variety of mainstream publications ranging from BBC Click, The Guardian and the Daily Mail to Vice Magazine and the Queen Latifah show.

Over the last five years it has been James’ mission to help people prepare for death in both the digital and real world. James is also a lecturer in digital media and social media at University College London (UCL).

Mórna O’Connor is a doctoral candidate at NCARE: Nottingham Centre for the Advancement of Research in End of Life Care at the School of Health Sciences, University of Nottingham. Mórna has a background in Psychology has worked at NCARE (formerly The Sue Ryder Care Centre for the Study of Supportive, Palliative and End of Life Care) and at Health E-Learning Media (HELM), Nottingham for the past four years researching the modern-day experiences of end of life. Mórna’s work and doctoral research is focused on the impact of modern technologies on human experience, culture and memory, particularly in relation to the internet-age experiences of death, dying and bereavement.

Wendy Lewis-Cordwell is Director of Bereavement Care Services - Cumbria and Lancashire, and the North West Bereavement Care Development Consultant for Child Bereavement UK. 

Wendy liaises with all sectors of care – Acute Hospitals, Hospices, Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Care plus third sector organisations dealing with all types of bereavement, focusing on palliative, end of life care and care of the deceased person, including providing dignified and respectful services for all bereaved families.

A trained facilitator for BSA 'When a Patient Dies', National Gold Standards Bereavement Care Training, Child Bereavement UK, Grief Journey UK, NCPC Associate and Bereavement Care Services.

She is Chair of Bereavement Services Association (BSA), Chair of Lancashire and South Cumbria Children’s Palliative Care Network, National Bereavement Alliance steering group member, Funeral Poverty Alliance - Public Affairs Working Group providing a collective voice to the Government, other professionals and members of the public.

Her passion is to make a difference by supporting bereaved families and give them a voice to enable change.

Lalage Harries is an Integrative counsellor and supervisor, specialising in working with young people. She also has particular interest in cross cultural issues in counselling and in bereavement. She has worked in a variety of face to face and online settings including educational, health care and charitable organisations and has trained counsellors to work online since 2012. Forthcoming publications include ‘Online supervision and managing risk in an international context’ in Online Supervision: A Handbook for Practitioners (ed. Anne Stokes, published by Karnac in 2017)

Lalage currently works with Off The Record Croydon as online clinical supervisor and senior practitioner and is Training Standards Officer for ACTO – the Association of Counselling and Therapy Online. She also runs an independent practice online and in Cambridge, offering counselling, supervision, training and safeguarding consultancy. www.LGHCounselling.co.uk

Louis Weinstock is a Child and Family Psychotherapist and Social Entrepreneur, with a specialist interest in digital technology and death and dying. He set up and led a therapeutic education provision for some of London's most disadvantaged teenagers, kickstarted Headspace's mindfulness app for kids, worked at St Joseph's Hospice as a Family Counsellor, and is co-founder of Bounce Works, the foundry that created the Apart of Me game, to support young people with a parent at the end of life.

Ben Page is a professional software developer with 17 years experience working in startups, government and financial institutions. He has designed, built and launched multiple products, and is co-founder of Bounce Works.

Ivor Williams is a designer whose practice is focused around design for death and dying. He is co-founder of the tech-for-good company Humane Engineering, with their first product Cove, a music-maker designed to improve self-expression for those experiencing bereavement. He is also Senior Design Associate at the Helix Centre, a design studio embedded in an NHS Trust in central London. With 10 years experience, he has worked with national governments, NGOs, cultural institutions and commercial companies. He teaches regularly, previous positions including IUAV Venice, Design Academy Eindhoven and the Glasgow School of Art. 

Clare Thomas has worked in the voluntary sector for over 20 years – at senior levels in charities both in the UK and in Brussels.  She has been CEO of Hope since July 2015.  Hope supports young people right from the moment of diagnosis of a close family member from a life threatening illness   Much of her focus has been the development of Hope nationally. Also another significant piece of work - following a request from the trustees of St Michaels’s Hospice in Herefordshire she have just begun to deliver its children and young person’s support service.

Mandy Price is a widow with 2 children who found the digital tools available inadequate whilst her partner approached the end of her life

WORKSHOP CHOICES   DAY ONE  1:30-3:00

1:  “Digital Assets & Digital Legacy hands-on workshop”

   James Norris, The Digital Legacy Association

Workshop description:

This workshop will require attendees to have a laptop or iPad. It will be a hands on workshop and include role-play. Following the workshop participants will have the skills to support the recently bereaved whilst sitting with them during specific digital assets and digital legacy administrative and often sensitive tasks. This will include the main platforms like Facebook, Twitter etc and the main devices used in the UK (laptops, smartphones etc). It will include, for example, sending out funeral invitations by email, how to use someone’s Facebook account to decide which photos should be used at their order of service etc.

Facilitator biography: See plenary speaker biographies.

2:  “Working relationally through Skype”

   Jonathan Hartley, Bereavement Coordinator/Counsellor, St Joseph’s Hospice

Workshop description:

As the quality of relationship between therapist and client is increasingly acknowledged as a key factor in a positive outcome in any therapeutic intervention, this interactive workshop explores the possibilities, and shortcomings, of working relationally on Skype.

Including a live demonstration using the technology, it will explore:

·       Does Skype provide an effective way of extending access to counselling for all, not just the ‘digital native’ generation?

·       Does Skype support an immediate and authentic therapeutic alliance, or does it ‘merely support a feeling or illusion of being in someone’s presence without sharing any immediate space’ (Fink)?

·       What is the Skype-based power relationship? Does it provide clients with a feeling of greater equality and autonomy?

·       How to address the practical issues and risks associated with using Skype, such as confidentiality, privacy and contracting?

Facilitator biography:

Jonathan combines his part-time coordinator/counsellor/supervisor role in St Joseph’s Hospice Hackney with a private counselling and supervision practice. Having initially used Skype to maintain access with clients internationally, he increasingly uses Skype to work with counselling clients and supervisees for whom it is a first choice mode of accessing support.

3:  “Online Counselling and Support via Email and Live Text: How It Works and Why It Matters”

   Lalage Harries, Training Standards Officer for ACTO, the Association for Counselling and Therapy Online

Workshop description:

This workshop will:

• Provide an introduction to the theory and practice of text based counselling and psychotherapy
• Look at how text based support can be incorporated into existing face to face services to enhance their effectiveness

·         Explore engaging ‘hard to reach’ bereaved client groups via email and live text counselling and support and additional online creative tools.

Facilitator biography: See plenary speaker biographies.

4:  “The advantages and disadvantages of Social Media for bereaved young people”

   Wendy Lewis-Cordwell, Child Bereavement UK

Workshop description:

• The thoughts of a Young Peoples Advisory Group Project that examined the pros and cons of Social Media and Grief in the digital age
• The two groups questioned what helped and hindered them through bereavement, anxieties, negative comments also reaching a bigger audience, memorials and keeping up with the trends!
• What do we need to think about when supporting young people using new technologies?

Facilitator biography: See plenary speaker biographies.