Unit 21: Supporting Significant Life Events Assignment Sample

2. Grief Responses and Theory in Priya’s Case

Grief shows up in the body, the mind and daily behaviour at once. In Priya’s case:

• Physical: broken sleep, little appetite, constant tiredness and frequent headaches.
• Cognitive: poor concentration at work, missed appointments and replaying the call from the police.
• Emotional: numbness at first, then anger at the other driver and guilt that she had not texted Daniel that morning.
• Behavioural: declining invitations, becoming rigid about the children’s routines, and returning to work early to avoid being at home.
• Social: drifting away from neighbours who did not know what to say.
• Financial: Daniel’s self-employed income stopped at once, leaving Priya’s wage to cover rent and childcare.

Kübler-Ross (1969) proposed five reactions: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. The model grew out of work with dying patients and was later stretched to cover bereavement (Kübler-Ross and Kessler, 2005). It gives practitioners a shared vocabulary, but Stroebe, Schut and Boerner (2017) argue that the evidence does not support a fixed sequence, and they warn that presenting grief as a staircase can leave people feeling they are grieving wrongly. Priya shows why. She was numb and furious in the same week and never settled into anything resembling bargaining.

Stroebe and Schut’s (1999) dual process model fits her better. It describes people moving back and forth between loss-oriented coping (crying, remembering, yearning) and restoration-oriented coping (bills, parenting, work). Priya’s early return to work and strict routines are restoration activity; her night-time distress is loss orientation. Neither is a problem in itself. Trouble starts when one crowds out the other. Worden’s (2009) four tasks of mourning add a practical checklist: accept the reality of the loss, work through the pain, adjust to a world without the person, and find an enduring connection with Daniel while building a new life.

Most bereaved adults adapt without formal treatment (Bonanno, 2004). A minority develop prolonged grief disorder, now a recognised diagnosis in both ICD-11 (WHO, 2022) and DSM-5-TR (APA, 2022), where grief stays intense and disabling well beyond what the person’s culture would expect. The manuals set different minimum durations, so at six months Priya’s functioning matters more than the calendar. Eating, sleeping, parenting and working are the markers a practitioner would watch. (AC1.2)

3. The Effect on Health and Social Care Practitioners

Practitioners are not immune to the events they help others through. Grace’s experience shows two separate mechanisms. First, repeated closeness to suffering can wear down empathy, which Figley (1995) called compassion fatigue. Second, practitioners’ grief often goes unrecognised. Doka (1989) named this disenfranchised grief: a loss that is not openly acknowledged or socially supported. A nurse who attends a service user’s funeral rarely gets bereavement leave for it.

The effects on practice are concrete. Grace cancelled visits, passed Eileen’s care to a colleague without a proper handover, and began avoiding conversations about Daniel. Eileen, who was already struggling to process the death, lost a familiar face. In other settings the same pattern appears as sickness absence, errors, emotional withdrawal and short-tempered communication, all of which land on service users.

Protective factors are well understood: manageable caseloads, reflective supervision, peer support, and a manager who asks how staff are coping rather than waiting to be told. When a practitioner suffers a personal bereavement, the employer’s duty shifts from protecting care quality to supporting a colleague (see Section 7). (AC1.3)

4. Which UK Policies and Procedures Support Bereaved People?

Much national guidance is written around expected deaths in health and care settings. Priya’s situation, a sudden death in the community, draws on a wider mix of health, social care, employment and benefits provisions.

Provision	What it provides	Limit in this case
NICE guideline NG142, End of life care for adults: service delivery (2019)	Sets out how services around the end of life should be planned and coordinated	Written for expected deaths, so it offers Priya no direct route
Ambitions for Palliative and End of Life Care (2021)	National framework, including an ambition that communities are prepared to help	A framework for local action, not a legal duty
Care Act 2014	Councils must promote wellbeing, including emotional wellbeing and family relationships, and assess adults with care needs	Eileen can request a needs assessment; Priya has no direct entitlement
Mental Capacity Act 2005	Capacity is presumed and judged decision by decision; decisions for those who lack it must be in their best interests	Shapes how Eileen is told about Daniel’s death and included in funeral decisions
UK GDPR and Data Protection Act 2018	Sets lawful bases for sharing personal information	Information moves between GP, school and employer only with a lawful basis, usually Priya’s consent
Employment Rights Act 1996, s.57A	Reasonable unpaid time off to deal with a dependant’s death and make arrangements	Unpaid, and “reasonable” is not defined in days
Parental Bereavement Leave (“Jack’s Law”)	Up to two weeks’ leave for parents who lose a child under 18	Does not apply to Priya, which shows how narrow statutory bereavement rights are
Employment Rights Act 2025	Creates a day-one right to unpaid bereavement leave, expected to start in April 2027	Not in force at the time of writing (November 2026); check GOV.UK for the final regulations
Bereavement Support Payment and Tell Us Once	Financial support for eligible bereaved partners and one notification to several government departments	Eligibility depends on National Insurance record, and claims have time limits

After a sudden death the police and coroner become involved, which can delay registration and the funeral. Tell Us Once spared Priya from repeating the news to each department, but nothing explained the inquest process to her.

Taken together, this framework protects rights and sets out processes. What it does not do is guarantee proactive contact once the funeral is over. Priya had to ask for help, which is a weakness when the person is in shock. (AC2.1)

5. Informal Support From Family, Friends and Community

Informal support covers practical, emotional, social, financial and cultural or spiritual needs. Priya’s sister, Anjali, stayed for three weeks and handled meals and school runs. A colleague covered Priya’s caseload for her first fortnight back. Neighbours left food on the doorstep. Aarav’s teacher quietly watched him in the playground and told the school’s pastoral lead.

Informal help has limits. Helpers tire, well-meant phrases such as “at least it was quick” can hurt, and nobody in Priya’s circle could explain bereavement benefits or the inquest process. Priya also turned down most offers, which is common in early bereavement. The right response is to respect her choice while keeping the offer visible, not to push and not to stop asking.

The point at which informal support should become formal is functional. If Priya cannot eat, sleep, work or parent for a sustained period, or if she shows any sign of wanting to harm herself, the next step is her GP, or same-day crisis support if the risk is immediate. (AC2.2)

6. Which External Sources of Support Suit Priya’s Family?

Service	What it offers	Suitable here?
Cruse Bereavement Support	Helpline, one-to-one and group support for bereaved adults	Yes. For Priya, and possibly Eileen
Winston’s Wish or Child Bereavement UK	Support for bereaved children, young people and their families	Yes. For Aarav and Meera, with parental consent
RoadPeace	Helpline and support for people bereaved by road crashes, including police, inquest and court processes	Yes. Directly matches a sudden death on the road
NHS Talking Therapies	Free psychological therapy for anxiety and depression, with self-referral in England	Conditional. Useful if Priya develops depression or anxiety, but not a bereavement service
Citizens Advice	Free advice on benefits, debt, housing and employment rights	Yes. Money pressure is a secondary loss
Age UK	Support for older people, with bereavement services varying by local branch	Partly. Relevant to Eileen, not Priya
Macmillan Cancer Support	Information and financial support for people affected by cancer	No. Cancer-specific, and Daniel’s death had nothing to do with cancer

Holistic assessment treats the family as four people with different needs rather than one household. Priya needs bereavement counselling and money advice. Aarav and Meera need age-appropriate support, and a six-year-old and a three-year-old will understand death differently. Eileen needs a care and capacity review as well as grief support. A person-centred assessment would be led by what each person says they want, recorded with consent, and reviewed as needs change.

Of the options above, Cruse and RoadPeace are the strongest first referrals for Priya because they combine emotional support with practical help around a sudden death. Group support suits some people, but others find early sessions overwhelming, so Priya should be offered a choice between one-to-one and group formats. Macmillan is the clear mismatch. (AC2.3)

7. How Can an Employer Support a Bereaved Member of Staff?

An employer’s first job is to remove avoidable pressure. Priya returned after ten days with no plan, no named contact and no review date, so errors were almost guaranteed. A better response would have combined statutory rights with practical adjustments:

1. Time and flexibility. Agree compassionate leave under the organisation’s policy, on top of any statutory entitlement, plus a phased return. Since April 2024 employees have had a day-one right to request flexible working, which gives Priya a formal route to adjusted hours.
2. A named contact. One manager or HR adviser who checks in at agreed points (week one, week four, week twelve, for example) so Priya does not have to ask each time.
3. Adjusted duties, not performance management. A temporary reduction in caseload, and no capability process while the cause of the errors is known to be bereavement.
4. Access to help. Information on the employee assistance programme, occupational health and the services in Section 6.
5. Supervision. In care settings, reflective supervision gives staff a safe place to talk about the work and the loss.

Many care organisations still reach for a formal debriefing session within days of a distressing event. This is where the older approach has not held up. A Cochrane review found no evidence that single-session psychological debriefing prevents post-traumatic stress (Rose et al., 2002), and NICE (2018) advises against offering it. Current practice favours practical help, supportive listening and watchful follow-up, with referral if symptoms persist after about a month. Rather than pushing Priya, or Grace, into a session about the event, the organisation should make support available and check in again. (AC3.1)

8. Reflective Account: Supporting Someone Through Bereavement

Illustrative reflection written for this sample. Replace it with your own experience, using Gibbs’s (1988) cycle or the model your centre requires.

Description. Last spring my uncle died suddenly, and my aunt, who had never paid a bill or driven on a motorway, was left alone in a house two hours away. I was working as a care assistant at the time. I visited most weekends, handled her paperwork and sat with her through the funeral.

Feelings. I felt useful during the practical tasks and helpless whenever she cried. I was also annoyed with myself for wanting to change the subject.

Evaluation. Practical support worked. Tell Us Once and a single call to her bank saved her hours. Emotional support was harder. Early on I kept offering solutions, such as counselling leaflets, when she needed someone to listen. Her mood eased only after I stopped fixing and started staying.

Analysis and learning. The dual process model helped me see that her paperwork days and her crying days were both healthy. Reading about disenfranchised grief (Doka, 1989) made me realise my own sadness was real too, yet I had no space at work to say so. My manager had no policy to point me to.

Action plan. I will ask my manager for reflective supervision, learn the local referral routes for bereavement support, and practise listening without advising. (AC3.2)

9. How Could Services Improve Support After a Sudden Bereavement?

Five changes would have made the biggest difference to Priya’s family:

1. Proactive follow-up. A named person, such as a bereavement lead at the GP practice, contacts the family at about three weeks and three months instead of waiting to be asked.
2. Joined-up support for children. With Priya’s consent, the school, GP and a children’s bereavement service share what they need to share. UK GDPR allows this where a lawful basis exists; it is not a barrier in itself.
3. One clear explanation of the process. A single call or leaflet from the coroner’s officer or police family liaison officer covering registration, the inquest and likely delays.
4. Workplace readiness. Employers update bereavement policies ahead of the April 2027 legal change and train managers to handle the first conversation well.
5. Practitioner wellbeing. Care providers replace one-off debriefing with reflective supervision and give staff a clear route to take leave after a service user’s death.

Each change should be monitored through feedback from bereaved people and staff, with review dates set in advance. (AC3.3)

Conclusion

Significant life events rarely change one thing at a time. Priya’s case shows a single death producing grief, money worries, parenting pressure and workplace difficulty at once. Grief theory is most useful when applied flexibly, and the dual process model fits her better than fixed stages. UK law and guidance set out rights and processes but depend heavily on the bereaved person asking for help. The strongest improvements are proactive contact, joined-up support for children and sensible employer practice, all assessed person by person.

References

• American Psychiatric Association (2022) Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, 5th edn, text revision. Washington, DC: APA.
• Bonanno, G.A. (2004) ‘Loss, trauma, and human resilience: have we underestimated the human capacity to thrive after extremely aversive events?’, American Psychologist, 59(1), pp. 20–28.
• Care Act 2014. London: The Stationery Office.
• Doka, K.J. (1989) Disenfranchised grief: recognizing hidden sorrow. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.
• Employment Rights Act 1996. London: The Stationery Office.
• Employment Rights Act 2025. London: The Stationery Office.
• Figley, C.R. (1995) Compassion fatigue: coping with secondary traumatic stress disorder in those who treat the traumatized. New York: Brunner/Mazel.
• Gibbs, G. (1988) Learning by doing: a guide to teaching and learning methods. Oxford: Further Education Unit.
• Holmes, T.H. and Rahe, R.H. (1967) ‘The social readjustment rating scale’, Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 11(2), pp. 213–218.
• Kübler-Ross, E. (1969) On death and dying. New York: Macmillan.
• Kübler-Ross, E. and Kessler, D. (2005) On grief and grieving. New York: Scribner.
• Mental Capacity Act 2005. London: The Stationery Office.
• National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (2018) Post-traumatic stress disorder (NG116). London: NICE.
• National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (2019) End of life care for adults: service delivery (NG142). London: NICE.
• National Palliative and End of Life Care Partnership (2021) Ambitions for palliative and end of life care: a national framework for local action 2021–2026.
• Parental Bereavement (Leave and Pay) Act 2018. London: The Stationery Office.
• Rose, S., Bisson, J., Churchill, R. and Wessely, S. (2002) ‘Psychological debriefing for preventing post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)’, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Issue 2, CD000560.
• Stroebe, M. and Schut, H. (1999) ‘The dual process model of coping with bereavement: rationale and description’, Death Studies, 23(3), pp. 197–224.
• Stroebe, M., Schut, H. and Boerner, K. (2017) ‘Cautioning health-care professionals: bereaved persons are misguided through the stages of grief’, Omega, 74(4), pp. 455–473.
• Worden, J.W. (2009) Grief counseling and grief therapy: a handbook for the mental health practitioner, 4th edn. New York: Springer.
• World Health Organization (2022) International classification of diseases, 11th revision (ICD-11). Geneva: WHO.