What
difference does a year make? Looking back and ahead in Bereavement – Volume 2
Emily Harrop
Editor-in-chief, Bereavement
Welcome to
Volume 2 of Bereavement. A year on
from the relaunch of Bereavement: Journal of grief and responses to death, it feels
timely to reflect on our first year of open access publishing and our
aspirations for the year ahead. In January 2022, then editor Caroline Pearce
noted the vital role of the journal in providing a space for critical research,
discussion and debate on grief and bereavement, as the world navigated the
ongoing impact of the Covid-19 pandemic (Pearce, 2022). As societies and systems
continue to struggle with the effects of the pandemic amidst global financial
and economic crises it is clear that this imperative remains. Death rates
remain high and people continue to face difficult end-of-life and bereavement
experiences as a result of these pressures. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in
February 2022 and the continuing war and displacement of Ukrainian people has
tragically added to this landscape of grief, trauma and loss, alongside other
global mass-bereavement events. The death of Queen Elizabeth in September 2022
affected many people in different ways, but also brought death, grief and
bereavement into the fore of public and media attention, providing space for
greater openness and engagement on these matters (Harrop
& Pearce, 2022). Continuing this conversation, in October the high-profile
launch of the report of the UK Commission on Bereavement outlined eight
principles for improving the support available to people bereaved in the UK,
setting out an ambitious agenda for cross-sector and societal change (UKCB,
2022).
In short,
this journal’s aim and potential to improve understandings of grief,
bereavement and responses to death and to enhance the quality of support
provided to bereaved people continues to be more relevant than ever. Looking
back on our recent publications I am pleased to reflect on how their quality
and eclecticism supports this goal, and our commitment to critical debate and
increasing the diversity of perspectives in the journal. In its mix of research
and viewpoint articles the 2022 collection includes views on grief experiences,
support needs, bereavement care practices and provision during and beyond the
pandemic (Harrop & Selman, 2022; Samuel, 2022;
Scott et al, 2022; Walker et al, 2022). Methodological innovations and
reflections are another welcome feature (Lytje &
Holliday, 2022; Qasim & Carson, 2022), while
research with people less heard and served, including diverse international
contributions, make up a substantial and much valued proportion of last year’s
publications (Creed, 2022; Dyregov et al, 2022;
Eaton-Stull et al, 2022; Hamiduzzaman et al, 2022;
Hamilton et al, 2022; Popoola et al, 20212; Qasim & Carson, 2022; Smidova,
2022).
The first
four publications of this 2023 volume continue these themes, highlighting new
considerations, tools and approaches for better understanding grief and
improving bereavement care. Poxon (2023) uses
in-depth qualitative analysis to explore what it means to be ‘stuck in grief’,
offering a critical perspective on, and practical recommendations for the
management of complex/prolonged grief. Bowman’s personal account as a widower
and grief educator considers the potential role and contribution of bibliotherapy in bereavement care practices (Bowman, 2023).
Following the recent growth in live-streaming of
funerals, the possibility of revisiting funeral recordings and the potential
implications of this practice for grief processes is considered by Riley et al
(2023). Reporting another pandemic and cross-cultural methodological
initiative, Nasri et al (2023) evaluate the
psychometric properties of the Persian version of the pandemic grief scale.
Looking to
the year ahead we remain committed to effectively engaging with practitioner,
policy and academic audiences, offering the same mix of empirical and
reflective accounts. As we grow and diversify our communities of authors,
readers and reviewers we seek to optimise this
journal’s role in bridging theory, research, policy and practice, in doing so
helping to improve the lives of people experiencing death and bereavement, at
these critical times in the UK and around the globe.
Funding
Emily Harrop’s post is supported by Marie Curie centre grant funding (grant no MCCC-FCO-11-C).
Bowman T
(2023) Bereavement care: a widower’s use of stories/bibliotherapy. Bereavement: journal of grief and responses
to death, 2. https://doi.org/10.54210/bj.2023.1089.
Creed J (2022) The uniqueness of twin loss and grief. Bereavement: journal of grief and
responses to death, 1. https://doi.org/10.54210/bj.2022.8.
Dyregrov
A, Lytje M & Rex Christensen S (2022) The price of
loss – how childhood bereavement impacts education. Bereavement: journal of
grief and responses to death, 1. https://doi.org/10.54210/bj.2022.14.
Eaton-Stull
Y, Hotchkiss J, Jones J & Lilien F (2022)
Bereavement behind bars: Grief support groups with and without therapy dogs for
incarcerated females. Bereavement: journal of grief and responses to death, 1.
https://doi.org/10.54210/bj.2022.13.
Hamiduzzaman M, O’Donohue K & Veltre
A (2022) Why aren’t rural family caregivers receiving
appropriate bereavement support in Australia? Practical considerations for
palliative care settings. Bereavement: journal of grief and responses to death,
1. https://doi.org/10.54210/bj.2022.1079.
Hamilton S,
Golding B & McCarthy JR (2022) Do we need to decolonise
bereavement studies? Bereavement: journal of grief and responses to death, 1.
https://doi.org/10.54210/bj.2022.
Harrop E
& Pearce C (2022) We wept and we waited – but what
can we learn from the week we mourned the Queen? Bereavement: journal of grief
and responses to death, 1. https://doi.org/10.54210/bj.2022.1109.
Harrop E
& Selman L (2022) Bereavement during the Covid-19 pandemic in the UK: What
do we know so far? Bereavement: journal of grief and responses to death, 1.
https://doi.org/10.54210/bj.2022.18.
Lytje M
& Holliday C (2022) Sand tray interviews: Developing a method to explore
the grief and support needs of 4- to 8-year-old parentally bereaved children.
Bereavement: journal of grief and responses to death, 1. https://doi.org/10.54210/bj.2022.21.
Nasri E, Yousefi S, Ashouri A & Mayeli P (2023) Psychometric properties of the Persian
version of the pandemic grief scale. Bereavement: journal of grief and
responses to death, 2. https://doi.org/10.54210/bj.2023.1087.
Pearce C (2022)
Introducing Bereavement: journal of grief and responses to death. Bereavement:
journal of grief and responses to death, 1.
https://doi.org/10.54210/bj.2022.17.
Popoola
T, Skinner J & Woods M (2022) Beliefs and strategies for coping with
stillbirth: A qualitative study in Nigeria. Bereavement: journal of grief and
responses to death, 1. https://doi.org/10.54210/bj.2022.10.
Poxon L
(2023) ‘Doing the same puzzle over and over again’: A qualitative analysis of
feeling stuck in grief. Bereavement: journal of grief and responses to death,
2. https://doi.org/10.54210/bj.2023.1095.
Qasim K
& Carson J (2022) Post-traumatic growth following the death of a parent:
Does one auto-ethnographic account make a summer? Bereavement: journal of grief
and responses to death, 1. https://doi.org/10.54210/bj.2022.15.
Riley J, Entwistle V, Locock L, Arnason A, Crozier R, Maccagno P
& Pattenden A (2023) Revisiting funeral
recordings during and beyond the Covid-19 pandemic in the UK. Bereavement:
journal of grief and responses to death, 2.
https://doi.org/10.54210/bj.2023.1093.
Samuel J
(2022) How was your lockdown? Reflections
of a therapist during the Covid-19 pandemic. Bereavement: journal of
grief and responses to death, 1. https://doi.org/doi.org/10.54210/bj.2022.9.
Scott H, Sivell S, Longo M, Seddon K,
Fitzgibbon J, Nelson A… Harrop E (2022) What should good bereavement service support look like?
Findings from pre-pandemic workshop discussions interpreted in the context of
the Covid-19 pandemic. Bereavement: journal of grief and responses to death, 1.
https://doi.org/10.54210/bj.2022.1078.
Smidova I
(2022) Engaging in perinatal loss in the Czech
Republic: Keen community and haphazard institutionalisation.
Bereavement: journal of grief and responses to death, 1. https://doi.org/10.54210/bj.2022.1090.
UK
Commission on Bereavement (2022) Bereavement is everybody’s business. Available
at: UKCB findings – UK Commission on Bereavement (bereavementcommission.org.uk)
(accessed 31 January 2023).
Walker WM, Horton R, Jones J, Morrell J & Roberts E (2022) Overcoming adversity: Insights into an acute hospital service of supported viewing for families bereaved during the Covid-19 pandemic. Bereavement: journal of grief and responses to death, 1. https://doi.org/10.54210/bj.2022.12.