'Nobody grieves alone': Team will help after loss of a loved one to suicide or overdose
Losing a loved one is always difficult.
But losing a loved one to suicide or overdose can be especially tough, explained Kim Turner, coordinator of the Mid-Ohio Traumatic Loss Response Team.
"The difference is that it is complicated/traumatic grief," she said. "Essentially, it adds complications upon complications for people."
To help these people, Cornerstone of Hope, a nonprofit comprehensive bereavement center, is forming the traumatic loss team, which is made possible by the support Marion-Crawford Alcohol, Drug Addiction and Mental Health Board, Turner said.
"When you've lost a loved one to natural causes and it's somewhat expected, there is grief. But the grief is typically something that you can move through pretty productively without additional support," she said. "When it comes to losing someone to suicide, there are nuances and unique challenges that suicide survivors have to face. And when it comes to overdose, it's somewhat similar. Many of the families have said that to some degree they saw it coming, but it does not decrease the stigma around it. And when you talk about stigma, you talk about isolation, and it increases the risk for additional adversity to occur to the families. And it's one of the things that we want to do, is to mitigate additional risk. ...
"And overdose survivors, there's a variety of different issues that can occur. Destroyed marriages, affect disorders, major depression. And so a lot of the research says that the sooner that we can engage a survivor, the more likely healing can begin. And that's the purpose of this team. It's a postvention team, and postvention is a form of prevention, believe it or not."
Currently, the group responds within 24 hours of notification; the program is expected to officially launch early in 2023. The goal will be to reach out to survivors as soon as possible after the loss, Turner explained.
"It's currently in development," she said. "A lot of it's going to depend on how we are able to fit in to the community crisis response. Our goal is to be able to get to the families as soon as possible and that could look like an on-scene response or it could look like a delayed response."
Group will train volunteers for project
They're still looking for volunteers to help with the effort, she said.
"I think that for the amount of time that we've been up and running that we're off to a good start," Turner said. "But if there's people in the community that have a heart for this population, if there's people in the community that are survivors themselves and are in a place that they'd like to give back, I'd like to hear from them."
Volunteers will be trained by the organization, starting in October. Volunteers aren't required to be trained counselors or clergy, though that would be a plus, she said.
People who need help dealing with the loss of a loved one to suicide or overdose can contact the Mid-Ohio Traumatic Loss Response Team at 833-634-4673. People who would like to volunteer can call that number or email coordinator Kim Turner at kturner@cornerstoneofhope.org
A volunteer interest meeting on Aug. 23 "went really well," Turner said.
"We had a fair amount of interest and we have a few applications that are pending right now," she said. "We're also just in the midst of introducing ourselves to the key stakeholders — law enforcement, the coroner's office, community-based mental health agencies. We believe that referrals will come from all of these sources and like I said, our goal is to get to families just as soon as we possibly can. We have to let people know that we're out there."
'Nobody grieves alone'
The group's goal is to connect survivors with other survivors, Turner said.
"That's our primary purpose, is to ensure that nobody grieves alone," she said. "And there's something special that happens when survivors meet one another. There's this implicit understanding of the suffering that they've endured. And what research says is it decreases suffering, and it promotes healing."
How those survivors will come together — as a single group, as separate groups for survivors of overdose and survivors of suicide, or something else — is still being determined. It will depend on what works best for this community, Turner explained. Creating this support structure is an Ohio Department of Mental Health initiative throughout the state.
"And as I've explored what other teams look like in other communities, they all look different, and they depend upon the community and how it unfolds," she said.
Turner said that in her experience as a trauma therapist, "when people receive the right, safe type of interventions, that they're able to heal. Shifts are able to take place and they're able to move on with their lives."
Postvention services such as those that the trauma team can offer make a big difference, she said.
"People shouldn't grieve alone," Turner said. "They shouldn't have to be in such complicated circumstances alone and a lot of the research says that the sooner you can get to a survivor, the more likely they are to engage in services and the healing process can begin. Without services, a lot of the research says it takes five to seven years for a survivor to engage in services. With proper intervention, it takes anywhere between 30 to 90 days for a survivor to reach out for help. So that's pretty significant."
Who will the trauma team help?
The Mid-Ohio Traumatic Loss Response Team will help anyone who's struggling with such a loss, no matter how long ago, Turner explained. And even though the group hasn't officially launched yet — volunteer training is scheduled to start in October — they're ready to help anyone who's in need.
"If they have not had productive grief, it is really important that they contact us," she said. They want people to know that "if they are alone, if they are suffering, if they haven't been able to move forward in their grief, that there's hope."
ggoble@nncogannett.com
This article originally appeared on Bucyrus Telegraph-Forum: Loss by suicide or OD complicates grief; team hopes to help survivors
