Welcome to Loss on the Frontlines.
This course is designed to introduce you to the people who are out there, and how they experience and do loss- and do not, as well.
You are going to hear interviews with real providers and people who have lived on the front lines. Some of it will be raw, in language and in descriptions. I have chosen not to edit that out, as it comes form the ones doing the work. You will be working with them, and you need to understand where they are coming from, their culture, their thought process, their concerns about protecting the folks they work with, their concerns for themselves.
Grief is real and raw sometimes. You will see a retired LEO (Law Enforcement Officer) cry over a child he pulled from a swimming pool more than a decade ago. He never cried before. HIs wife did not know about it. You will see her hearing about it for the first time. You will see me discovering that my own wife was saluted with an honor guard while on a national disaster team- from a member of that team. I asked her about it later, and she said she vaguely remembered it. She was too tired the day it happened to even call home, and she put it away along with the memory of a truck filled with the tiny bodies of child Covid victims. You will hear a therapist describe saving the lives of officers who finally reached the end of their rope, after one too many losses, and who found their way back after EMDR.
I did not shape the interviews- I wanted them to go where they found themselves. I want you to hear the experiences, not look for space to criticize the front line person explaining where they are coming from. That is their culture, their experience. They came to do these for you so your work in thanatology can be fuller, and more understanding of who they are and their culture.
You will hear an offer of free services for front line responders you can access for those you serve. You will hear about other resources you can locate. Those who take the greatest advantage of these interviews will be left with a rich resource of referrals and materials. I hope that will be you.
I take teaching any grief course very seriously. I am married to a funeral director/mortician/national disaster team member. I worked with law enforcement in college, and provide services to LEO's currently. My cousin was a wildland firefighter. My family has served in every branch of our military. I watched Kate Piper literally on the lines at the fire in Paradise, California, as she stayed there for days on end helping firefighters who were trying to save lives knowing their own homes and families were gone. If you do not know about Paradise, it was the largest fire in US history. We lost 98 lives and whole towns. As we are now in fire season here, it is also first and foremost on the mind of every Californian who lives in a fire adjacent area. We all know it could be any one of us with the right conditions. I am also twice widowed, and was married to an ER nurse and a hospice nurse, as well as working in hospice myself. Grief is what I do. End of life as well. I want anyone I teach to really get the material and find it useful, shareable, helpful, and a source for future reference. I hope this will be the case for you here.
My course is structured around discussion boards and a paper. In the discussion I would like you to include both the videos and the primary materials. Your paper will be about the group you might want to work with in grief from this course. I will make the interviews available early so you can choose. Again, I want this to be a course that will go with you into your future.
- Teacher: Jill Johnson-Young
- Teacher: Korie Leigh