Slide Away is back for the Academic Year 2022-3! There are lots of developments happening behind the scenes here at Slide Away which will enhance our bereavement support alongside our provision of workshops, memory days and pre-bereavement services. These developments include:
The appointment of our new Senior Bereavement Practitioner role. Our new Senior Bereavement Practitioner, Penny Harris, is a longstanding member of the Slide Away team and will be a familiar face to many. Penny will bring her wealth of experience, expertise and skills to this new role to provide enhanced support and greater continuity of support to bereaved children and their families/carers. The role has been introduced to ensure a smooth transition and a familiar face to all children who come to a workshop. Working under the Clinical Service Manager, the Senior Bereavement Practitioner will undertake visits to schools to deliver individual support to children and young people before they come on a workshop and will lead workshops with the assistance of our bereavement support practitioners and volunteers. All referrals received will still be triaged by our Clinical Services Manager, Laura Thompson.
Enhanced support for families/carers supporting bereavement children. Slide Away is committed to providing support to parents/carers of bereaved children so that they can continue to support their child after Slide Away. The form this support takes depends on the support offered to the child or young person but may include the parent being part of a workshop or attending a parents session. We are also offering all parents and carers of bereaved children and young people in Kent access to ‘The Parent Support Training Programme Webinar.’ Further details of this webinar and booking will be available on our new website at the end of September.
New BPS accredited training courses for professionals. New BPS approved training courses for professionals. Earlier this year, Slide Away gained approval from the British Psychological Society (BPS) to deliver bereavement support training for the puposes of CPD. Since then Slide Away has put together a comprehensive programme of training for professionals. Full details of the training courses and booking will be available through our new website launched later this month.
A School Bereavement Contact (SBC) Conference. Later in the Autumn term we plan to hold a one-day SBC conference. This will give Slide Away the chance to support the people in schools who support bereaved children by explaining what Slide Away offers, being able to meet with other school bereavement contacts and receiving initial training on children’s grief. Further details will be sent to registered School Bereavement Contacts shortly.
Our new and improved website. Our new website will go live later this month. We hope you will agree it is much improved from our current website and will include more accessible advice and information on supporting bereaved children, booking for our training courses, newletter sign-up so you can get the latest Slide Away news straight to your inbox, an online shop and a secure area for schools which will include an online referral form.
Be sure to check back regularly for further updates and sign up to our newsletter when our new website goes live.