Grieving

Losing a loved one is a major event that every individual experiences because death is a normal part of life. The process through which an individual approaches death or grieves after losing a loved one is usually affected by his/her social environment. The social environment affects this process through familial, societal, and cultural factors. One of the most common issues in today's social work practice helping clients deal with the loss of a loved one. Consequently, understanding the grieving process and models is an important competency for social workers because of the likelihood of handling clients who need to learn and know how to grieve with the loss of a loved one. An understanding of the grieving process helps the social worker to understand how to address the needs of a grieving individual and his/her family. However, social workers need to develop self-care strategies since handling such individuals can be emotionally, mentally and physically draining.

The most commonly utilized models of grieving are Kubler-Ross and Westburg models which incorporates different stages through which a person progresses when responding to the loss of a loved one. As a social worker in a hospice environment,... Social workers generally handle many issues and responsibilities in hospice care including family end-of-life care and helping individuals cope with the loss of a loved one. Kubler-Ross grieving model is suitable for a hospice environment since it can be utilized as part of family end-of-life education. The first step in applying this model would entail helping family members go through the denial stage since denial is a functional aspect of grieving since it assists in making the loss relatively easy (Zastrow & Kirst-Ashman, 2016). During this process, I will provide a platform for the individuals to direct their anger to a superior being as they question the reason for the loss. Most of my focus in applying this model would be helping the individual reach the stage of acceptance through dealing with any form of depression. In this case, I will focus on identifying the stage the family member is in and provide suitable help to help him/her get to the stage of acceptance. The most effective services will be provided to the individual based on the stage he/she is experiencing as part of coping with the death.…