Grief Institute
The annual Grief Institute is a collaborative venture committed to providing community members, hospice personnel, and related professionals with education related to end-of-life and grief. The Institute is a grief education program that includes a community workshop for families, friends, and caregivers in addition to a continuing education conference for professionals. Our goal is to facilitate open dialogue, immersion in current research, and ultimately, a more comprehensive, coordinated, community approach to responding to grief in this region.
Please email us with your contact information if you would like to be on the Grief Institute mailing list.
Past seminars:
In 2004, Jennifer Elison, Ed.D., LCPC, APRN, and co-author of Liberating Losses was the featured speaker at the professional education seminar. This training on Complicated Grief: Exploring, Understanding, and Responding was attended by 80 participants from all over Western Montana. In addition, Dr. Elison and Dr. Ira Byock (author of The Four Things that Matter Most) each led a community workshop with a total atendance of 210.
In 2005, the 2nd Annual Institute brought together over 137 community members, working professionals, and students for two days of bereavement education. 45 community members attended the opening night workshop, Grief in Families: Respecting Individual Responses. The workshop was presented by Dr. Tina Barrett, Tom King, M.Div. of St. Patrick Hospital and Partner’s Hospice, and Pat Kendall of A New Song. The following day 92 people attended Dr. Ken Doka’s seminar, Grieving Styles: Culture, Class, Age, and Gender. Nationally-renowned speaker, Ken Doka, Ph.D., is a professor of gerontology at The College of New Rochelle and author of numerous books including Disenfranchised Grief, Death and Spirituality, and Children Mourning, Mourning Children.
In 2006, the tradition of talented speakers continuted with Robert Zucker, MA, LCSW, who presented on Meaning Reconstruction and Grief. Mr. Zucker offered a framework for helping the bereaved create new meaning after a loss, combining personal experiences and stories with clinical theories and strategies. The Community Workshop on April 6th welcomed members of the Missoula community for a discussion of Grief in the Community: Supporting Each Other, with Gretchen Strohmaier, M.Div., of Partners Hospice, Tina Barrett, Ed.D., LCPC, and a remarkable panel of bereaved individuals. The evening presented grieving community members and professionals with a myriad of resources to help them find support during grief and loss.
In 2007 SEASONS welcomed Donna Schuurman, Ed.D., CT, National Director of the Dougy Center for Grieving Children and Families, as the featured speaker for the Fourth Annual Grief Institute, Understanding Grief: Supporting Children, Family, & Community. Dr. Schuurman drew on her current research and her years of professional experience to introduce methods for understanding & helping grieving kids & teens and offered ways to respond to traumatic death as a community. Dr. Schuurman has written extensively on the topic of parentally bereaved children. The evening before Dr. Schuurman's workshop, Maureen O'Malley from the Suicide Prevention Network, and Terri Bauer, SEASONS MSW intern, facilitated a discussion of grief & loss with a panel of community members who are survivors of family members' death from suicide and sudden loss.