Bereavement Volunteers can help clients to express their grief

Angela Webley is a Volunteer Bereavement Listener with the Bereavement Support Service provided by Florence Nightingale Hospice.

“I became a Bereavement Listener because I previously, for about ten to fifteen years, I had been volunteering as a Listener and a counsellor in a variety of other organisations and I’d had a break. I then experienced a bereavement myself. And whilst I was going through my own grieving process, I was looking to do some more voluntary listening or counselling work. I was told about Florence Nightingale Hospice and when I went to the interview and found out all the services, I thought, “Yes! This would be great.”

“The training and preparation given to us by the Charity was very good. It was a ten week course and it covered all aspects of bereavement so that when the course ended I felt capable and able to provide support to the bereaved.”

“My expectation of the role before I started: well, I actually thought I’d be helping to solve some of their issues, but actually that’s not what it’s about! It’s actually about listening. And by really listening to the person who’s been bereaved and helping them to express their emotions, their thoughts, their feelings and through that they gradually, over time, they do begin to feel better and able to cope.”

“Typically when someone is grieving they may turn to their family and friends for support, but not everyone has a support network, they may live far away from anybody. But also families and friends will be dealing with their own grief. I do believe it’s very important that they’ve got somewhere that they come to professionally trained Volunteers, who can help them to express their grief, to talk through whatever they’re saying, that they’ve got the freedom, without judgment, to say whatever they like, because we are neutral and we won’t be judging. And it’s through that freedom to freely express themselves, that they can then process and move through all the myriad of emotions that affect us with grief.”