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May 2005
Heartlight Center
Helps Ease Grief's Toll
Scott Bershof
Denver Business
Journal
When death intrudes
upon the workplace -- whether it's losing a working colleague or
it's an employee struggling with a personal loss -- the effects can
be devastating.
That's where Rachel
Kodanaz and Jennifer McBride want to help out.
Kodanaz and McBride
are co-founders of the Heartlight Center, a nonprofit facility
located in southeast Denver designed to help people deal with
personal grief and educate the community about the grieving process.
The Heartlight
Center is funded through individual contributions and receives
grants from organizations, such as the Rose Woman's Foundation and
Health-One Alliance, for specific programs.
One of the programs
Heartlight offers is "Grief in the Workplace," which teaches
businesses how to deal with employee deaths. The program advises
employees and management about several issues, including how to plan
the day's work around a funeral and what to do with the deceased's
cubicle or office space.
Grief in the
Workplace sessions usually last three hours can be done in company
offices, at human resources worker conferences or similar
gatherings. Costs are based on hourly fees, and often depends on
where a session is held. The Heartlight Center periodically hosts
sessions throughout the year and will do so again May 16.
Kodanaz, director
of Grief in the Workplace, said training sessions usually take place
after the fact.
"We would like to
educate people in advance because, in a perfect world, we would all
be prepared when it happens," Kodanaz said.
Death can have an
effect on the workplace in two kinds of situations, Kodanaz said:
when a fellow employee dies or when a co-worker's close family
member dies.
"The difference is
whether one individual is grieving or if the entire workplace is
grieving," Kodanaz said. "If it's somebody in the workplace, then
workplace morale is lower, and productivity is lower."
Workplace grief and
sorrow will be magnified if a fellow employee is killed in a
work-related accident, Kodanaz said.
"If it's an
accident at the workplace or someone dies in a car or plane crash
while on a business trip, then fear is one of the few more
[prevalent] emotions," Kodanaz said. "Then we bring in an outside
counselor to explain that accidents happen."
Employees don't
always need to have close relations for an unexpected death to have
an impact, Kodanaz said.
"If you don't have
a close relationship, but you still respect their work, then you
have a relationship," Kodanaz said.
McBride, president
of the Heartlight Center, is in charge of "Compassion Fatigue,"
another Heartlight service, a program for those in professions whose
employees are at higher risk of harm on the job and grief is a more
common emotion.
"That is
caregivers, hospital workers and funeral directors, as well as
police officers and fire fighters," said McBride, who has a master's
degree in pastoral ministry.
The term Compassion
Fatigue refers to the overwhelming feeling of anguish workers in
such industries experience, which McBride said often leads to what's
commonly known as "burnout."
"What's different
is when someone is emotionally worn, we call it burnout," McBride
said. "Compassion fatigue is more systemic. It's not just a feeling
with a job, but with a lot of things. We want to help them
articulate that in a safe manner."
"Survivor's guilt"
is another emotional complication, when people find it difficult not
to notice how random tragedies can be.
"It's the 'why'
question," McBride said. "Why is all this awful stuff happening to
all these other people?"
Paul Verizzo,
chaplain of Total Long Term Care, a Colorado-chartered nonprofit
that allows the elderly to receive quality health care in their
homes and communities, said compassion fatigue is a form of
post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Verizzo, who has
gone to Heartlight's presentations on compassion fatigue, said the
sessions provide a way for those involved in industries where grief
is a common sentiment to share their experiences and observations.
"It's a place to
meet and interact with other people dealing with similar emotional
issues," Verizzo said. "We have to do some self-distancing ... it's
easy to see your own mortality or your parents' mortality."
Ed Waldrop,
chaplain of Veteran's Affairs (VA) Eastern Colorado Health Care
System, said he's seen the benefits of the compassion fatigue
program and has gone through the program with some of the VA's
social workers.
"From that
experience, we've developed informal support groups," Waldrop said.
"We [now] feel comfortable doing that and talking about these
things."
Commonly referred
to as "caregivers," those in grief-stricken professions don't
realize they occasionally need some kind of care and compassion as
well, Verizzo said.
"Who's taking care
of the caregivers?" Verizzo asked. "This is a way for the community
to take care of the caregivers.”
© 2005 American
City Business Journals Inc. |
