Support After Death by Overdose (SADOD) offers community-based peer grief support after substance-related deaths occur. Professionals working in substance use settings as direct service providers (DSPs) experience high rates of trauma and grief due to the loss of clients, coworkers, and friends. SADOD’s DSP programming serves this community of providers by providing basic information on topics related to grief and loss & resiliency while providing peers an opportunity to discuss these topics in community. We hope through these workshops we not only provide space to examine various topics, but also to foster a culture of peer support among DSPs.
As direct service providers we sometimes interact with family members of our participants/patients/clients for a number of reasons. When this happens we may be unsure of what we can offer them or how to best interact with them. We will come together as a community to discuss ways we might interact, strategies when talking with friends and family, and things we might want to take into consideration. After this workshop participants will have gained strategies to use during these interactions and be able to better understand the family members and loved ones perspective.
Objectives:
- Understand the perspective of family members and loved ones of people who use drugs
- Examine the interactions we may have with family and loved ones of people who use drugs
- Recognize important areas where communication and language might need to be assessed or modified
- Discuss areas where there may be a need for education or information for family members
