ABSCo & BEF CONFERENCE 2019

ABSCo & BEF Conference 2019

Tuesday 23rd and Wednesday 24^th July 2019

Leeds Trinity University, Horsforth, Leeds LS18 5HD

• Proving and Improving

  Developing effective assessment and evaluation

  in bereavement services

  This year ABSCo has joined forces with the Bereavement Evaluation Forum (BEF) to provide a stimulating one-day conference focusing on developing effective assessment and evaluation. This forms day one of ABSCo’s annual two-day conference. Day two provides the opportunity to participate in two workshops focusing on different aspects of clinical practice, as well as attend ABSCo’s AGM.

  Cost:  

  Day One Only: £88 includes refreshments and cold buffet lunch

  Day One & Two: £195 includes B&B on campus (23rd), refreshments, cold buffet lunch (23^rd& 24^th), hot evening buffet and bar (23^rd)

  Day Two Only: £50 includes refreshments and cold buffet lunch

  B&B on campus: £45 (p/night) is available on 22^nd, 23^rd and 24^th (NB. 23^rd included in two-day conference package)

  DAY ONE    Proving and Improving: Developing effective assessment and evaluation in bereavement services

  Tuesday 23^rdJuly 2019       10:00 – 4:45 (registration from 9:00)

  Are you using assessment and evaluation tools in your service?

  Do you want to get more out of them, to improve practice and prove impact?

  Or are you considering which ones to use?

  This one-day working conference will explore the theoretical and practical aspects of using assessment and evaluation to best match service delivery with the needs of both adult and child bereaved service users. Find out more about the current generic, and bereavement-specific, tools available and how they can be implemented.

  This interactive day will tackle tricky issues, such as how to address organisational and practitioner resistance.

  Whatever your starting point, you will be better prepared to take your assessment and evaluation practice to the next level.

  Aims of the day

  By the end of the day, you will:

• improve your understanding of the relevance and value of assessment and evaluation to your service
• be more confident in choosing and adopting the best fit-for-purpose approach to assessment and evaluation in your service
• be better able to provide evidence of the efficacy and effectiveness of the bereavement care you offer, to bereaved service users, funders, senior management, and commissioners
• be better networked with colleagues facing similar challenges so that you can support one another to move forward with this work.

• Programme

  In the morning, a range of service practitioners and providers, managers, commissioners and service users will:

• explore the current tools available within a national and international context
• illustrate the benefits and challenges of implementing these tools in practice across the spectrum of bereavement care services and approaches to support, from compassionate communities to therapeutically focused approaches
• offer practical help and advice on how to choose an appropriate tool/s for your service (including receiving a copy of the Guidance for services choosing assessment and evaluation in tools, being launched by the BEF that day)
• widen your understanding about how to use assessment and evaluation to inform service development

• In the afternoon a choice of workshops will be offered to match your current practice and provide practical networking opportunities with colleagues addressing similar challenges in assessment and evaluation. These will include:

• a Masterclass, led by Dr Linda Machin, originator of the Adult Attitude to Grief Index (AAG), open to those who have already introduced the AAG into their services
• the launch of the Serious Illness in the Family Questionnaires (SISFQs) for those providing pre-bereavement support to children and young people.
• embedding assessment and evaluation tools in practice

The Bereavement Evaluation Forum was formally established in 2018 as a Special Interest Group of the National Bereavement Alliance. It is committed to understanding, developing and integrating evaluation, in all its components, into the work of bereavement care and plays a lead role in developing best practice in assessment and evaluation.

DAY TWO     Developing Practice

                Wednesday 24^thJuly 2019       9:15 – 3:15

Programme

9:15 – 10:30          ABSCo AGM

10:30 – 11:00        Coffee

11:00 – 12:30        Choice of 4 workshops

12:30 – 1:30          Lunch & networking

1:30 – 3:00             Choice of 4 workshops

3:00 – 3:15             Final plenary and close

Day Two Workshops

The following 4 workshops will be offered twice so you will be able to attend two:

How Do you Solve a Problem Like Bereavement? - Bereavement Help Points 

  Paul Parsons and Ian Leech

This workshop will provide information, support and advice for setting up Bereavement Help Points as community support in your area.

Paul Parsons has been employed as the Adult Bereavement Service Co-ordinator at St. Christopher’s Hospice, Sydenham since 2012. He has gained specialised knowledge in clinically assessing and supporting the needs of parents and children. Paul is actively involved in facilitating group work, and is an accomplished trainer and supervisor at the Hospice and in private practice. Paul has recently gained a Level 7 Diploma in Trauma and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). He has over 20 years of management skills to back up his counselling training, and is a member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy

Ian Leech’s role as Community Engagement Manager at St. Giles Hospice is to inform communities in their catchment area of the wide and varied services of St. Giles Hospice, to enable people to have a better understanding about end of life care and bereavement support.  Part of his role is centred on changing attitudes in communities toward death, dying and bereavement.  His work involves working with volunteers and other staff to deliver projects in communities across St Giles’ catchment area. Ian has successfully piloted an Understanding Bereavement workshop which he delivers in schools, colleges, businesses and community groups.  Ian has set up craft groups and computer socials for the elderly within the hospice and his work around Dying Matters includes his ‘conversation board’ which encourages conversations around death and dying. He has successfully developed a series of Bereavement Help Points, a drop in service for anyone who is bereaved.  In 2012, Ian was an Olympic Torchbearer.

To be Met as a Person in Grief: exploring the dynamics of adult attachment

  Jane Cato

This workshop explores both the theoretical base and the psychotherapeutic practice of working with people who are dying and who are bereaved, from an attachment perspective drawing from the work of Dorothy Heard, Brian Lake and Una McCluskey.

Jane Cato has worked as a psychotherapist, counsellor, supervisor and trainer for 25 years. Jane currently leads and manages the Counselling and Bereavement Service at Martlets Hospice, Brighton and has an independent psychotherapy and supervision practice in central Brighton. Her original professional training was as a nurse where she worked for 16 years in HIV & Aids and palliative care. She has continued her life-long interest and commitment to palliative, end of life and bereavement care as a therapist, supervisor and trainer. Over the last 5 years Jane has been integrating contemporary attachment theory and practice in her end of life work with patients, with the bereaved and in clinical supervision of professional care givers. Jane also works at The Bowlby Centre where she delivers and facilitates Attachment Based Experiential Groups for trainee attachment psychotherapists throughout their training

When the personal and the professional collide: exploring the impact of personal loss on our therapeutic practice

  Jeanne Broadbent

This workshop will enable delegates to explore and reflect on the ways their own personal losses have affected the way they work with their clients. How did they cope and what kind of support did they receive? In what ways has their experience changed their 'use of self' in the therapeutic relationship? Did this change over time? The workshop will make reference to Jeanne’s research into therapists' experience of traumatic bereavement, and will be interactive and involve reflective discussion. Issues relating to the use of supervision and self-care will also form part of the interactive discussion

Jeanne Broadbent is a person-centred counsellor with several years’ experience of working with the bereaved. She is currently working with patients, carers and the bereaved in the Family Support Team at St Rocco's Hospice in Warrington. She is particularly interested in traumatic bereavement and completed her doctoral research on the impact that therapists' experience of traumatic loss had on their personal and professional lives

A model of Pluralistic Counselling for Bereavement: Theory and Practice

  John Wilson and Professor Lynne Gabriel

The workshop will use research case studies to demonstrate how pluralistic counselling theory can put the bereaved client’s needs at the centre of the support they receive. Delegates have the opportunity to consider and discuss appropriate interventions based on hypothetical case studies

Professor Lynne Gabriel has had a long career in the field of mental health. Lynne leads York St John University Counselling and Mental Health Clinic. As Reader in Counselling and Relational Ethics at YSJ University, she supervises post-graduate research students.

Dr John Wilson was bereavement counsellor at Saint Catherine’s Hospice Scarborough. He is now Director of Bereavement Services at York St John University Counselling and Mental Health Clinic, conducting case study research into the relationship between attachment style and grief outcomes. John is author of ‘Supporting People Through Loss and Grief’, published by Jessica Kingsley.  

Please note: ABSCo members must have renewed their membership for 2019-20.