Community VNA will host a screening of a recent webinar by the Hospice Foundation of America. Following the video, we'll hold a brief discussion and provide instructions for receiving 1.5 CE credits.

Webinar Description

This webinar explores complicated grief that will likely emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic. The Coronavirus pandemic brings in its wake not only pervasive threats to human life and financial security, but also a tsunami of anxiety and grief over countless losses, both intangible and concrete. This presentation summarizes the psychological toll of the pandemic, focusing on its assault on familiar and taken-for-granted meanings on which we previously relied to understand ourselves, our world, and our future. In particular we will focus on the implications of COVID-19 for bereavement care for survivors of both viral and non-viral losses in this era, and sketch the implications for healing interventions at the end of life and in dealing with the unfinished business mourners’ face in its aftermath.

Learning Objectives

1. At the conclusion of this webinar, participants will be able to:
2. Define complicated grief and describe risk factors that might contribute to prolonged grief disorder or other forms of complicated grief reactions;
3. Describe two tools for assessment of COVID anxiety and unresolved issues in bereavement;
4. Discuss evidence that meaning making mitigates Coronavirus anxiety;
5. Describe interventions that can be used with varied populations experiencing complicated grief reactions to COVID-19 deaths; and
6. Assess the possibility of posttraumatic growth following the pandemic.

Following the webinar, participants will take a brief online exam and receive 1.5 CE credits through the Hospice Foundation of America.

List of Board Approvals

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Webinar Presenters

Kenneth J. Doka, PhD, MDiv, is Senior Bereavement Consultant to Hospice Foundation of America and recipient of the 2019 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association for Death Education and Counseling. A prolific author, editor, and lecturer, Doka is an ordained Lutheran minister and a licensed mental health counselor in the state of New York.

Robert A. Neimeyer, PhD, is Professor Emeritus of the Department of Psychology, University of Memphis, maintains an active consulting and coaching practice, and also directs the Portland Institute for Loss and Transition. Neimeyer has published 30 books, over 500 articles and chapters, and received numerous awards for his work.

Leah McDonald, MD is a current Fellow in Hospice and Palliative Medicine at Hope Health and Brown University School of Medicine in Rhode Island. Her current focus is in improving primary palliative care and hospice skills provided in critical care settings and the Emergency Department.