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Coping with Loss and Bereavement · Centrally Speaking

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Centrally speaking, it is the Central Twincular Church's podcast.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: It speaks about issues that would be of interest to our society.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: In particular, it addresses how a Christian worldview intersects with Western secular culture.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: In the spirit of the church's founder, we take the perspective of the middle way, which is in agreement with the historic Christian Church.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Dr.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: Drake Williams, Minister of Mission and Theology of the Church.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: Our website is www.cscfamily.org.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: Today we are going to speak about the subject of loss.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: All of us go through the loss of a loved one and go through times of grief.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes this is sudden, and at other times this may take place over a long period of time.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: These can be difficult and defining moments in one's life, but coping with the loss of a loved one is something that we all must come to grips with.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: Today I am joined by Christine Smith, who was the founder, executive director, and president of the board at the Center for Loss and Bereavement in Skipack, Pennsylvania.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: And also the co-founder of the Center, along with Shirley Elrod.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: Chris is also a member here at the Central Schwenkfelder Church.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: Chris, welcome to the show.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: We know that the Center for Loss and Bereavement was founded to fill a need of professional bereavement support in education services in the community.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: And we know that you and Shirley both firmly believe that grief and loss are core experiences and profound matters of life, and that left unaddressed or unsupported lifelong struggle might ensue.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: We know that your center is also helping people gain insight and strength throughout the grieving process, and you're also helping to educate the community at large about uh the issues of loss and bereavement.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's a great work that you have going there, Chris, and we're really thrilled to be able to have uh some of your comments uh today.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um I'm wondering if you could uh uh share about how you and uh Shirley uh first came to found the center a number of years ago.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_02: So thank you, Drake, for the opportunity to speak about the center.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_02: Uh yes, when I was about 22 years old, my sister and her son were killed in a car accident, and then that was when I was 22, so I was quite young.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_02: Later in life, as I went through my education and had one of my first jobs, I was working in high school uh in the counseling department, and at the same time I was volunteering uh for hospice.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_02: Through this work, I witnessed my family going through a lot of stress and anxiety.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_02: In particular, my mother struggled with depression and alcoholism.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_02: And at the same time that she's suffering, I was constantly looking for different social services to help my mother.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_02: And there were none.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_02: So throughout my work at the high school, there was always a nudge to want to find some kind of center or some kind of place for people to go for loss and bereavement, in particular death and dying.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_02: So while I was working at the uh doing volunteer work for the hospice, there was a hospice chaplain that put me in touch with another lady who was very interested in the field of death and dying, and we met and both had the same ultimate uh desire to start some kind of a center for loss and bereavement.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_02: And uh we met and we talked and we started in 1998 to develop the programs and what we have uh today.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_02: So it was uh I look at it as a journey that uh with my background and her background just pulling together and God nudging me to uh follow my desire to do this.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: So this was always founded in Skipack, Pennsylvania.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: And it came out of uh an experience that you had uh many, many years ago without uh somebody really being able to help.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: And now it's grown into something where you have uh some thirteen dedicated staff workers uh at the center uh who are a combination of what th therapists as well as uh counselors.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: Uh wonder if you could uh uh say uh something about uh the staff.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_02: So we have a uh really terrific uh group of people, um, wonderful therapists, and we do therapy and we do counseling.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_02: And it's difficult often for the public to understand the difference between the two.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_02: So what we offer at the center are individual and family counseling, and then we have the support services with the children's program and Camp Millie in the summer, which is our summer uh bereavement camp for children who've lost a loved one.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_02: In particular, with our staff, all of them are licensed counselors or marriage and family therapists.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the support people are also master's level people that are not necessarily therapeutic clinicians, but have a wide variety and a uh great experience in education.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: I've had the opportunity to meet uh several at the center and enjoyed uh the way they interact uh personally.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: I know that you've got one very special uh therapist over at uh the center.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: I wonder if you could comment about uh the therapy dog that you have.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_02: So we have a very special therapist at the center, and we've had a golden retriever at the center for I'm gonna say the last 15 years, and we are now on our third, third therapy dog.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_02: So the third therapy dog we have at the center's name is Sadie, and she follows Gracie and Clara, and they've been instrumental in what we are looking to do at the center to really use the expressive arts in many different ways at the center.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_02: So we're just starting now to develop our art therapy, our music therapy.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_02: We've been using photography, journaling, and and actually looking into equine therapy.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_02: But our big start was with our therapy dogs, and they are beloved.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_02: And when we have our dog at Camp Millie, uh she is really the highlight of for the kids.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_02: They just love her and uh she loves them back.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um I was wondering if you could share a little bit further about uh the difference between therapy and counseling, since uh you just brought it brought that up.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: What's what's the difference between between that?
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_02: So the difference between what we call therapy and support is truly your educational background.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_02: For instance, uh my background is in clinical counseling, so most of my training has been on-site and it's a specific program geared for therapy.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_02: Support can go as far as masters in education, master's in counseling.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_02: It's uh less clinical, more supportive, and there's a distinct difference, but the public has a real hard time noticing or understanding the real the real difference.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: You've uh had a number of people come through the center that have been uh helped over the years.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um I was wondering maybe if you'd share a story or two, um not necessarily names, but uh the type of people who have um been helped uh through through the therapy, through the counseling at the center.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_02: So Drake, we have a number of different programs and the uh uh therapeutic programs run the gamut from loss from disease, loss of limb, loss of job, um death and dying.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_02: The support groups which uh are multitude of different subjects uh such as suicide, loss of spouse, loss of a mother.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um we have a young adult group.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_02: And um we just see all cross-sessions, cross-sections of humanity from ages four all the way to to death.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_02: Presently we're doing a lot of work with anticipatory grief, which is people now addressing their their death beforehand, which is um something we're seeing more and more of.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: And in anticipatory grief, uh uh are there certain uh points that you you're trying to make uh or uh uh uh ideas that uh you're helping uh clients realize?
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_02: Aaron Ross Powell I think it's truly uh usually what we're seeing more of is a family situation where the person who knows they're dying really wants their family to try and understand to the best of their ability what they're going to be going through.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_02: And at least to get to a place where it won't be so shocking and so traumatic for family members uh throughout that loss and death process.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: Is there a process that people go through as they grieve?
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um are there a number of similarities, a pattern uh that uh that people experience, or is each one uh uh so very different?
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_02: Really, every death is very unique uh to each individual and we see all different kinds of responses to a death or a loss.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_02: And again, depending on what that loss is, whether it's a long-term illness or a traumatic car accident or suicide, every reaction is unique and different, and therefore we we try to transmit to all our clients that um there is no path, normal path.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_02: One step forward, one step back.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_02: It's just unique for each person.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: I know that you also deal with uh those who have uh a sudden death in the family.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: That's quite different than anticipatory grief.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um can you share with us how y you go about uh counseling uh in that type of situation?
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_02: Aaron Powell The main difference between traumatic death and anticipatory grief would be just the shock of uh a sudden traumatic death, uh for instance car accident or suicide.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_02: The trauma of that is pretty numbing and quite uh for lack of a better word, it's it's distracting.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_02: You you can't think, you can't really make good decisions.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_02: So what we what we try to explain to traumatic uh death people that would call into the center is to wait, take some time.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_02: It's too difficult to uh integrate into your mind really any counseling until you have time to to process a little bit of your loss.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_02: That's the main difference between a traumatic loss and anticipatory.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_02: With anticipatory grief, there is somewhat of a a time frame where you can process the death.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_02: But in the end, it's really not until the person actually dies that you can fully process what's going on.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_02: It just with the traumatic death, it's much more volatile and much more impactful at the moment.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_02: And you really need some time to s to just wait before you would uh uh take advantage of uh looking into counseling.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: You have a few special programs uh at the the center, uh Nellow's Corner as well as uh Camp Milley.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh could you share a little bit about that and uh maybe even how uh what type of people can be would be uh encouraged by uh either of these?
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_02: So Nellow's Corner is our children's bereavement program and it's a support program and it's a free program, and we we take ages of children anywhere from four to fourteen, fifteen or sixteen.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_02: And we have age appropriate groups and we run during the school year through till uh the summertime.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_02: And again, I said it's a support program for uh children.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_02: And then after an Ella's corner uh finishes at uh at the end of the school year, we run into Camp Millie, which is our children's support camp, bereavement camp, which runs for a week in June.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_02: And again, um that is strictly for children and it's strictly a support program, which is a lot of fun for kids.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_02: We always look forward to uh sort of the cap for our year uh at Camp Millie, which is w run right out here of um Central at the community center.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_02: And again for ages children uh four four to fourteen.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well I've been uh privileged to be able to see what you're doing over at uh Camp Millie has uh walked around to uh to see the number of children that you're helping.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um I wonder if you could mention about some of the Christian underpinnings that have uh spurred you along in this work uh with the center.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_02: So for me, uh really the work at the center was an answer to what I really truly believe was uh a call, a journey that I was on, and having experienced the situation with my family and being in the counseling field, it it was uh, I believe, uh a providential moment in my life to be able to follow through on what I call the nudge from God to use my ability in the counseling field to bring something to the community that might just serve a purpose, being that I I didn't have that for my family.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: Can you tell me about your executive director, Emily Vincent?
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, Emily has been with us since the inception of the center, and she came to us with a background in counseling psychology.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_02: She's been a great ambassador for the philosophy and mission of the center and continues to personally work as a therapist, support group facilitator, and participates in the professional training series as well.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_02: We were very fortunate to have her.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: Could you uh share anything that's coming up at the center in the next uh several months?
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_02: Well, thank you for asking, Drake, because this actually is our 20th year and and we're excited to be celebrating all year and having an event October 22nd to celebrate our 20 years in Skipack.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_02: So it's been um really a very rewarding and fulfilling work, and we hope to continue for many years to come.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_02: That's great.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: We certainly hope you do.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: Chris, thanks for uh uh being a part of Centrally Speaking, and thank you to our listeners to listening to uh this uh this ministry from the Central Schwenckfelder Church in Worcester, Pennsylvania.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: Sunday morning services are the following a traditional service at 9 o'clock AM with organ and various choirs.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: Our praise team leads a contemporary service at 10 35.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: Sunday School for Youth is at 9 o'clock, and at 9 and 10 30 for adults.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: We warmly welcome you to join us.