Open Thanatology panel: Should communities be expected to help in death, dying and bereavement?

Recent decades have seen increasing endorsement of a public health approach to end-of-life care. One manifestation of this approach is community mobilisation in the provision of support.

By now, a wide range of examples exist, including the work of community volunteers providing practical and emotional help to people who are facing death and their families, as well as awareness raising and education on planning for death and its aftermath. The move towards community mobilisation has entered the policy arena, exemplified in the recent NHS England Ambitions for Palliative and End of Life Care: A national framework for local action 2021-2026, as set out in Ambition Six - Each community is prepared to help. 

This online panel discussion will seek to unpack the assumptions and implications of the notion that communities should be and are prepared to help. We will consider questions such as: What does ‘community’ mean? How realistic is it to expect communities to be able to provide support?; ‘If realistic, what particular ‘form(s)’ of support can communities be expected to provide?; in turn, what support do communities themselves need, if any, in their efforts to provide support?  

The discussion will open with presentations from a panel of three people who, in their different ways, are all engaged in community action addressing death, dying and bereavement. They will share their experiences and insights and there will be an opportunity to ask questions and further reflect on the issues raised.

REGISTER: Should communities be expected to help in death, dying and bereavement?

Panel members

Dr Chantal Meystre: Chantal is Director of The Omega Course which delivers experiential education to pre-morbid people in the community. This includes communications skills by role play, in preparation to support family, friends and neighbours through dying, death, and bereavement. The course was conceived and planned in 2015, and began in 2016, in response to a request for help from a group of friends. It became a registered charity in 2019. Its aim is to provide a safe atmosphere in which to discuss dying and death to combat the extant taboo.

Caroline Gibb: With a background in community development work, until recently Caroline was Project Manager of The Truacanta Project - an initiative of the Scottish Partnership for Palliative Care (SPPC). The Project was set up to support local communities in Scotland who were interested in taking community action to improve people’s experiences of death, dying, loss and care, using a community development approach. It ran from 2019-2023. Since the project’s formal conclusion Caroline continues to work in the SPCC.

Dr Guy Peryer: Guy holds a NIHR Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) East of England Palliative and End of Life Care Research Fellowship. He is a lecturer at the University of East Anglia (UEA), and has worked on secondment with St Nicholas Hospice Care in Bury St Edmunds. He leads a UEA research group studying methods to expand community involvement in palliative and end of life care. Outside of academic life, Guy volunteers for the Anne Robson Trust at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital supporting patients and the families of patients dying in hospital.

The webinar is being hosted by Open Thanatology at the Open University. It will be facilitated by Prof Erica Borgstrom (lead for Open Thanatology and academic specialising in death studies), Dr Joanne Jordan (academic researcher in palliative and end-of-life care) and Sam Gould (PhD student, whose research is exploring what unpaid carers think helps or hinders their resilience when caring for someone nearing the end of life at home).

The webinar will be recorded and the recording will be shared afterwards.

Register for the webinar via this form. Nearer to the date, registrants will receive a link to join the webinar via email.