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The Bereavement Support Group has recently established a Befriending Committee within each Jamaat. The purpose of this committee is to offer a listening ear and moral support to those who are bereaved. Members of each committee are asked to participate in formal training before they commence any befriending.
To date three Jamaats have received bereavement befriending training: Peterborough Jamaat has participated in a course run by Cruse Bereavement as has Milton Keynes. Both jamaats have received recognised certification for their training. Both jamaats have been offered the opportunity of gaining experience as volunteers by working alongside Cruse workers. This would involve further training after police clearance would be officially authorised. Members from both jamaats have shown a keen interest in taking part in this invaluable experience. Stanmore has participated in a 10 week course run by Harrow Bereavement Services. The course leaders are still in regular contact with the women offering much appreciated guidance. The course leaders have taken an avid interest in the forming of a befriending committee in Stanmore and have instigated many role play practical sessions at Stanmore itself to boost the confidence of the women. They have also offered the women the opportunity of accompanying them on visits made in Stanmore and have welcomed of the women to participate in their own befriending or “listening” sessions as a means of gaining experience and confidence. All the women have given extremely positive feed back regarding the training they have received. The next stage is to produce a Code of Practice for the use of all the Befriending Committees so that all decisions undertaken would be uniform in all the Jamaats. The Code will deal with questions of Data Protection, Confidentiality etc and will be produced using information accessed from the various organisations dealing with bereavement as well as the ideas of the women who have taken part in this initial training. Needless to say, this is still in the infancy of its implementation. We are pleased that Portsmouth Jamaat are next in line for training which is due to begin in September. Birmingham Jamaat has also given us tentative indications that they are hoping to begin training in September also. The Bereavement Support Group’s legal department has welcomed members from most of the jamaats in England. An initial meeting was led by Abbass bhai Mithani from Birmingham to actually rally the enthusiasm of these young professionals and persuade them to donate their “non existente” free time in putting together an information pack for the Bereavement Support Group. Further support was gained from exposure of the B.S.G at the CETAB awards for excellence. A meeting has been scheduled in early August to further the production of this literature as well as to plan for the content of future legal road shows that the Bereavement Support Group wishes to establish. A report of this meeting and the consequent agenda will be submitted at a later date. The benefits department are also in the process of collating information for the production of this pack. |
