Practical and emotional support after someone dies
The National Bereavement Service (NBS) works alongside industry-leading professionals to offer practical and emotional support when a person dies. They’re a lovely bunch of people and we’d highly recommend reaching out if you’re in that part of your journey.
The service provides information and a range of useful guides on topics such as what to do when someone dies, registering a death, and memorialising social media accounts, along with their coping with grief leaflet.
Their website has articles that can help people when making difficult decisions at the time of a loved one’s death, and general news on bereavement and the support available. They also have a web chat facility where you can speak to a bereavement advisor.
Their free helpline is available to connect you to a member of the team who can offer general guidance about bereavement and let you know the immediate steps that should be taken following a death, in order to help you navigate through this difficult time. They are well versed in working with those bereaved by suicide and are very aware of the specific challenges we can face.
Any form of bereavement can be an extremely emotional and difficult time, and the practical matters that must be dealt with after a death may be unfamiliar and stressful, which can make this time even more challenging. This is why the NBS is there to guide the bereaved and offer practical and emotional support, no matter the situation or circumstance.
We know first hand that the practical matters can be a real trigger, one of our Co-Founders Amelia, remembers this time very well:
“As I had just turned 19 when I lost my mum I was shielded from a lot of the practical stuff but I do remember the vast amount of work to be done. I specifically remember the horrible process of having to close her email account. It wasn’t something we’d thought about after she died and a couple of months later I received an email from her account!
A spam email obviously but it didn’t stop my mind from running wild with conspiracy theories but very quickly coming back to reality and triggering another burst of deep sadness. Then when we tried to get the account canceled it was like talking to a brick wall, a tech giant with no protocol (this was 10 years ago, hopefully it has changed!) but we had to provide a death certificate and go through an unnecessary process with no guidance. I wish I’d known about NBS at the time!”
