The Alder Centre is a national centre of excellence in offering bereavement counselling and support to anyone affected by the death of a child of any age, from conception onwards. In addition, the counselling team at the Alder Centre delivers Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust Counselling and Support service.
The Alder Centre is a national centre of excellence in offering bereavement counselling and support to anyone affected by the death of a child of any age, from conception onwards. In addition, the counselling team at the Alder Centre delivers Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust Counselling and Support service.
The team supports the emotional health and mental health and well being of a diverse range of staff groups within the hospital in an innovative and person-centred way:- Staff can self-refer for counselling at any time, the centre also accepts referrals from team managers and Alder Hey’s Occupational Health Department. The team usually responds to referrals for staff counselling within a week of a receiving a referral. The staff team are all experienced counsellors with additional qualifications and training in a variety of therapeutic approaches, for example CBT, Brief Solution Focused Therapy, EMDR and Mindfulness. This means that staff will receive support and intervention appropriate to their individual need;
In addition, staff groups or individual members of staff who have been impacted by the death of a child; particularly if it has been a traumatic death can access debriefing and exploration sessions facilitated by The Alder Centre’s Bereavement Care Support team (BCS). BCS support families (and staff) from the point of death when a child dies at Alder Hey and from the point a child arrives at the bereavement suites for a post mortem if a child has died elsewhere. This important work ensures vicarious trauma in staff is minimised, if it is then identified that individual staff would benefit from counselling; they can be encouraged to access the staff counselling service;
The counselling team develop and deliver a range of stress management sessions to clinical and non-clinical staff groups within the hospital to encourage self-care and for staff to develop emotional intelligence and resilience. These practical sessions involve the team introducing staff to a range of different a range of coping strategies and the space to practice the strategies which resonate with them. The aim of sessions is to facilitate increasing self-awareness in staff in an environment where they can identify stressors and triggers both in the workplace and at home and reflect on which technique works best for them and why;
The counselling team deliver number of courses for staff from basic counselling skills to Understanding & Working with Child Loss & Bereavement in Counselling & Helping Relationships, which has been recognised as an exemplar of gold standard practice in the field of Child Bereavement. All our courses are accredited by Open Awards;
The team work with a broad range of departments within the trust to create bespoke training. For example, the Alder Centre Counselling Team have recently developed training for the Alder Hey Charity staff who often work with acutely bereaved families, families whose children have chronic conditions or families of children with life-limiting conditions who approach the staff about raising funds in their child’s memory when their emotions are particularly high. Our counselling staff liaised closely with the Director of Charities to ascertain her broad goals and the specifics of what she would like the training to cover. These ideas have formed the basis of what will ultimately be a series of trainings;
The Counselling team provides ongoing (individual and group) clinical supervision to staff from MacMillan team, oncology, urology, muscular dystrophy team, Scope face2face and dietetics;
The team is working closely with advanced nurse practitioners from Accident and Emergency to help develop a staff well-being hub within the A&E department. This recognises the unique stressors that emergency practitioners are under when working under difficult circumstances. ‘I am a busy mother, wife and nurse practitioner. I have been supported by our outstanding Alder Centre both personally and professionally. They helped me find what I had lost, my confidence, my clarity and my joy. We are now working closely together to improve departmental wellbeing. From small seeds, come beautiful flowers. Thank you alder centre.’;
The team at the Alder Centre liaises closely with team leads to identify the specific needs of each staff group and create a training which is: firmly embedded within the 6Cs; is delivered in a way that increases staff resilience, competence and confidence; encourages reflection; explores the importance informal debriefing within teams and enables individuals and teams the to recognise when further support from the team may be needed (Whether in the form of a debriefing session facilitated by the Alder Centre or if an individual would benefit from staff counselling);
Self-care for our counselling team and student counsellors is imperative to mitigate against vicarious trauma. We ensure at least 30 minutes between each counselling session. There are always opportunities for informal debriefs and chats. We are able to reflect on cases during team meetings and to reflect on the personal impact of working in the field of child bereavement;
Our student counsellors are allocated both an internal supervisor and a mentor. Students have commented on the positive impact this has made on their training experience. ‘I have been in a counselling placement at the Alder Centre since November 2016. I am required to do 150 hours in total. Unique also to other students on my cohort in that the placement offers a preliminary 5 week certified training course around loss and bereavement, an in house supervisor and mentor who have been ‘at hand’ to offer advice or just someone to talk to with any queries. I feel a fully integrated member of staff; I have been welcomed in and offered blended learning opportunities alongside to marry with my University course. I feel happy in my placement and this is primarily due to feeling welcomed, respected and developed with my role. I don’t feel like a volunteer I feel like part of the staff.’;
A key part of the Alder Centre is the role played by our volunteers, who are all bereaved parents. We have a responsibility to look after their mental health and emotional wellbeing. Regular training from our counselling team and the volunteer co-ordinator ensures the volunteers work within their role and practice good self-care.
The service works with departments across Alder Hey.
Staff are asked to complete a confidential feedback form when their counselling has ended; Departments approach team to develop and deliver bespoke training / well-being sessions; Staff approach team to help them develop ‘staff well-being’ hubs in their departments – ‘I am a busy mother, wife and nurse practitioner. I have been supported by our outstanding Alder Centre both personally and professionally. They helped me find what I had lost, my confidence, my clarity and my joy. We are now working closely together to improve departmental well-being. From small seeds, come beautiful flowers. Thank you alder centre.’ Feedback is used to continually develop services we provide for staff.
The range of services provided by the team have expanded in the last 18 months or so and are growing in response to demand – and because of word of mouth – staff feel ‘held’ and supported by the team and feel empowered to be agents of their own well-being – we are proud that the service is valued in such a way.
Time constraints is often an issue; particularly offering staff support within an acute hospital trust – this to some extent has been overcome by offering some counselling sessions in the evening. Bringing in new ideas, that may fall outside the traditional boundaries of ‘counselling’ has sometimes been challenging too.
We have a team of 13, who are all passionate about providing staff support alongside their role in counselling and supporting bereaved families – many of the team are skilled in delivering training and working across systems in a productive way.
All staff who access counselling are asked to complete an evaluation form – we also complete ORS (outcome rating scales) and SRS (session rating scales) each session which demonstrates positive changes take place as a result of counselling. feedback forms are completed by those who attend any of the trainings delivered by the team.
we are actively reaching out to departments within the trust to communicate that staff well-being is everybody’s business
