The Tyndale Centre for Grief and Loss invites both those who are grieving and those who care for the grieving to the second annual Embracing Grief With Hope Conference featuring Dr. William G. Hoy. The event will take place on April 22 and 23 in the Alumni Hall at Tyndale University.

For 12 years, Dr. Hoy was a clinical professor of Medical Humanities at Baylor University, in Waco, Texas, until his retirement last year. He has been a counsellor and educator with more than 40 years of experience in walking alongside the dying and bereaved. He holds the Fellow in Thanatology (FT) designation and is active in leadership of the Association of Death Education and Counseling.

“Grief is not about getting over our losses,” Dr. Hoy says. “It’s about enfolding them into our life, integrating them so that we are challenged to live new, transformed and repurposed lives in the light of those losses.”

The three sessions of this conference were developed to address an important issue for bereaved individuals, and the professionals and volunteers who care for them: How do we find meaning in loss so that loss transforms us into new purpose? While each workshop has its own intended audience, anyone is welcome to attend any or all sessions.

First session – Aren’t You Over This Yet: Dealing with Expectations in Grief – takes place on April 22 from 7 to 9 p.m. This seminar will offer guidance about reasonable expectations for grief “recovery,” both to bereaved people and those who care for them.

“One of the most difficult experiences for bereaved individuals is dealing with the expectations of grief,” Dr. Hoy says. “Sometimes, well-meaning friends offer unhelpful comments like, ‘Wow, it’s been so long; aren’t you over this yet?’ As bereaved people, we often wonder if we are, in fact, not doing this right. This workshop will offer helpful guidance about reasonable expectations for grief ‘recovery,’ both to bereaved people and those who care for them.”

Second session – Contemporary Understandings of Grief: An Update on the Latest Thinking about Loss – runs from 9 a.m. to noon.  on April 23, with a break for lunch afterwards. Dr. Hoy will share relevant ideas about how grief works and how it affects all people.

“If the last thing you learned about grief was Kubler-Ross’s five stages, we have great news,” says” Dr. Hoy. “There are great new ideas about how grief works, and how it affects individuals, families and communities. Knowing the latest about grief is especially important for healthcare clinicians, educators, clergy and anyone who regularly interacts with hurting people. In this workshop, we make the latest research findings intensely practical and fill the entire experience with challenging cases and ideas for positive interventions with bereaved people. Though bereavement is, to be sure, some science and some art, this workshop addresses the emerging challenges to make sense of all the noise about such things as grief stages, prolonged grief disorder and complicated mourning.”

Third and final session – Making Sense of the Senseless: Spiritual Care in an Uncertain World – runs from 1 to 4 p.m. on April 23. Dr. Hoy will explain how spiritual issues interface with the best biomedical and psychosocial care.

“Every caregiving professional knows well the importance of assessing the significance of faith community involvement in a dying or bereaved individual’s experience,” Dr. Hoy says. “We become unsure about how to proceed with the information we discover. What big questions do people face about death, loss and grief? Can I engage in spiritual conversations with clients/patients when I am not a chaplain? How do spiritual issues interface with the best biomedical and psychosocial care? How can I help individuals find a pathway to spiritual discovery without “proselytizing?”

For more information or to register for the conference, visit www.embrace-hope.ca

The Tyndale Centre for Grief & Loss, which officially opened in April 2024, is committed to accompany the broken-hearted on their grief journey, witnessing the slow transformation from hopelessness to new life, making a difference one person at a time,” says Dr. L. Keith Taylor, Consultant of Tyndale's Centre for Grief and Loss.

“Our objectives are to offer facilitator training with the goal of establishing grief support groups as a caring extension within and without the church,” he says. “Our educational focus is to provide educational seminars, addressing pertinent issues of our day – for example, MAID – as well as networking with other Tyndale Centres. We provide a place for Thanatology students to learn and accompany those who mourn.”