In sexual health and harm reduction, grief is woven into our daily work. We experience it, we witness it, and we walk alongside our communities as they navigate it. We strive to offer compassion and care to others—but how often do we pause to offer the same to ourselves?
This virtual series explored how grief shows up in our lives and workplaces. Whether your role is direct support, education, management, advocacy, or caregiving, understanding grief is part of the landscape of what we do.
Across three sessions, we talked about grief from complementary angles: the personal and systemic forces that shape it, the consequences of untended grief, and creative, embodied practices that help us live and move through it.
These sessions offer support to:
• frontline workers and helping professionals
• grief group facilitators
• program planners
• caregivers
• administrators
Presenters: Carlene Dingwall and Karyn Henkel
October 30, 2025. The series’ opening session explored the internal and systemic forces that keep us from engaging in grief work. Presentation of grief research and cultural understanding of grief led into guided discussion to look at what happens when grief has no place to go, and how mourning can open the door to deeper connection with ourselves and others. Carlene and Karyn shared approaches for integrating grief work into both personal and professional life. As longtime collaborators and counselors, Carlene and Karyn brought their experience in supporting groups navigating disconnection and destabilization.
Presenters: Yvette Perreault and Cathy Walker
November 6, 2025: Yvette Perreault and Cathy Walker of Good Grief Care have decades of experience supporting groups through transitions, losses, and critical events. Originally developed during the HIV/AIDS epidemic, Yvette’s When Grief Comes to Work has since expanded to include harm reduction, street-level health care, intimate partner violence, and other frontline contexts. This session addressed the complexities of traumatic loss and ways that organizations can acknowledge and respond to grief within their systems and cultures.
Handiwork: Making Peace with Grief |
Presenter: Carlene Dingwall
November 27, 2025: In this closing session, we returned to themes from earlier workshops, discussed moments of joy within losses, and explored creative, hands-on ways of working with grief that does not stifle the voice of injustice. We talked about ways to discover and remember how making with our hands can open up space for reflection, renewal and connection.
We moved through unfinished conversations and experimented with practices that help transform grief into connection and meaning. This session wasn’t recorded.
Grief-based art activities (In Word document format so you can add you own)
Resources |
Read / Watch / Listen
The Wild Edge of Sorrow by Francis Weller
On Death and Dying by Elizabeth Kübler-Ross
Healing the Soul Wound: Trauma-Informed Counseling for Indigenous Communities by Eduardo Duran
Faith, Hope and Carnage by Nick Cave and Seán O’Hagan
Here are Yvette and Cathy’s presentation slides. If you use any of their slides, please credit them.
When Grief Comes to Work. Yvette Perreault, November 2025
Herbs and Grief. Cathy Walker, November 2025
Honouring our Grief and Acknowledging our Losses: Support for Workers and Community Members When Responding to Death, Loss and Traumatic Events
Impact Debriefing Toolkit for Managers
Grief-based art activities (In Word document format so you can add you own)
Gone Too Soon: Navigating grief and loss as a result of substance use
Taking Care of Each Other in Times of Change and Crisis. webinar with Len Pierre
A Chicken Keeper’s Grief and Loss
Is news overload giving you ‘vicarious trauma’?
Counselling and support
- British Columbia Bereavement Helpline: 604-738-9950 / Toll free 1-877-779-2223. Mon-Fri 9 AM- 5 PM
- Mourning Café: Free online support group
- RACE Hotline: Rapid Access to Consultative Expertise (for providers, not patients) 1-877-696-2131. Mon – Fri 8 AM-5 PM
- Suicide Crisis Helpline: Call or text 988
- Indigenous Toll Free Crisis and Support Line – Kuu-us. Culturally safe, 24/7 support. 1-800-588-8717
- Canadian Mental Health Association Counselling Services
- Bounce Back (CMHA) – Mild depression/anxiety. GP to complete referral 1-866-639-0522
- Your local Hospice Society often provides grief counselling and grief groups.
- Your faith/spiritual/cultural community often has leaders trained in mental health of counsellors who volunteer their time.
For additional learning options, visit our library of on-demand webinars.
We greatly appreciate the vision of our government funders and their ongoing commitment to supporting the work of PAN. In particular we gratefully acknowledge the Public Health Agency of Canada – HIV and Hepatitis C Community Action Fund. The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent the views of the Public Health Agency of Canada.