Instructors: Yvette Perreault & Betty Ann Rutledge

For many community agencies, dealing with death and loss is a difficult but expected occupational reality. Many workers in our sector have experienced losses due to death or significant life passages – both at a personal or professional level.  Grief-informed policies, procedures, staff training, and human interactions can support the development of agency responses comprehensive enough to manage the challenges of ongoing loss and transition, including the difficult reality of death and traumatic events.

This training will provide an orientation to the broad range of assessment and intervention skills for supporting ourselves, our teams and our agencies in loss situations. As managers and colleagues, supporting one another to collaboratively respond to these loss events can help create healthy workplaces, spirited teams and more resilient workers.

Using a combination of presentation, reflective activities and group interaction, this adult education learning opportunity will assist managers, colleagues and peers to work with grief and loss in these 3 areas:

• Support for bereaved workers as individuals
• Support for a team when death or loss occurs as part of the work
• Support for the organization when there are significant changes in the workplace not necessarily related to death, but generating a loss/stress response

Learning Objectives:

• To deepen awareness of the impact of ongoing multiple losses on our service-users, in ourselves as workers, and within our teams and agencies as a whole
• To better understand the range of diverse responses to traumatic grief and multiple loss in this sector
• To come away with a theoretical framework for multiple loss impact in marginalized communities and community agencies
• To investigate current coping strategies and strategies of resilience that emerge when people are faced with ongoing loss events
• To provide examples of effective Impact Debriefing techniques and structures for “Saying a Good Good-bye” that support workers and teams responding to a variety of losses

Target Group: All

Additional Training Method: Agency Training 

Course Cost

THTC Member: $100 | Non-Member: $110 

THTC Reminders:

• Once you submit your registration request, THTC staff will respond with a payment link (if you are not part of an invoiced agency). Once payment has been received, you will receive a registration confirmation. This process typically takes 1-4 business days.
• Course registration closes 24 business hours prior to the course start time. If the course is not full and you would like to submit a last-minute registration, please email our Training Coordinator: julian@thtcentre.com.
• If you are part of an invoiced agency, kindly note that only approved staff can submit registration requests. If you are unsure about who is an approved staff member, please speak to your supervisor/manager or contact our Training Coordinator: julian@thtcentre.com.
• If you choose the member price ticket and you or your agency are not a THTC member, you will be charged the non-member rate. To become a THTC member, please follow the link below:
  • Online Membership Application – Toronto Hostels Training Centre (thtcentre.com)
  • You must receive a THTC membership confirmation email before submitting registration requests with the member price ticket.
• You must be on time for the course. Should you miss more than 30 minutes of the course, THTC will not issue a certificate of completion.
• This training is interactive – all participants are required to participate to the best of their ability.
• Participants will receive instructions on how to join the online Zoom session 1-2 business days before the training date. Please be sure to check your junk/spam folder.
• Participants are required to have their camera on for most of the training session (i.e., at least 70% of the session) in order to receive their course certificate. Should you require accommodation, please reach out to julian@thtcentre.comto plan at least 48 business hours before the training session. We also encourage you to use a tablet or laptop as participating using only a cell phone will significantly reduce your learning experience.
• A certificate of completion will be distributed upon successful course completion.

For more information on THTC policies and procedures, please follow the link below:

Policies & Procedures – Toronto Hostels Training Centre (thtcentre.com)