Mourners Get Help in Cyberspace

When Michele Prince was 16, her mother died. Her mother’s death was the
third loss of a close relative that Prince had suffered, and her family
decided that she needed to see a therapist. Prince, now 35, remembers
the experience as detrimental to her emotional well-being. “I distinctly
recall at that young, raw age, the social worker saying, ‘Oh well, chin
up, at this age, as an adult, having a parent is really a luxury, so
just get on with things.’ It was very bad advice, and my goal is to
prevent that from ever happening again to someone who has had that kind
of a loss.”

A recent graduate of the Irwin Daniels School of Jewish Communal Service
at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR), Prince
teamed up with fellow student Amy Berkowitz, 27, to actualize that goal.
For their master’s project, the women created a bereavement Web site,
where those who are grieving are able to find the resources available to
them in the community to help them through their dark periods. The Web
site is a resource guide that lists both synagogue and agency support
groups and counselors in the L.A. area, and provides links to other
sites where Jewish mourning rituals are described.

“I was working as a hospice volunteer, and for the past year I was a
medical social work intern at the USC hospital. I could really see —
through that work and through loose networking in the bereavement
community — that there really was no easy access to groups and
counselors who specialize in that kind of work,” Prince said.
Berkowitz was inspired by her experience as an assistant director at a
bereavement retreat, where she saw how helpful good support groups are
in giving strength to those who have experienced loss.

The information for the site was gathered in an informal way, with
Prince and Berkowitz networking through the Westside Valley Bereavement
Facilitators Network and through word-of-mouth referrals to find people
who were experts in bereavement counseling. Each counselor was
interviewed before being placed on the site. Prince and Berkowitz also
contacted every synagogue in the L.A. area to find out what bereavement
services they offered. The site also has listings for those with
specialized needs, such as helping those who have lost a relative to
suicide or lost someone in a violent way. “We made sure that we covered
the whole geography of L.A., and the outlying areas as well,” Prince
said.

Prince said that the site picks up where shiva stops. “After the shiva
is over, the shloshim [30 days of mourning] is completed and nobody in
the community is making meals for the mourners anymore, they find
themselves feeling really lost and needing someone more to talk to. This
would be the time for them to look at our site,” she said. “The other
piece of this is that there are so many people who are not affiliated,
who don’t have a rabbi for counseling, and who don’t even know about
shiva, but in their time of loss, they feel more comfortable working
within the Jewish community — so this is a place that they can turn to.”

The site is currently being funded by HUC-JIR and the Kalsman Institute
on Judaism and Health, an affiliate of the college. The founders are
planning on updating the site on a quarterly basis by adding more
resources as they become available, and they are also thinking about
rolling out the site to other communities across America.

But is working in bereavement depressing? Prince was sanguine about it.
“I feel that we are providing a wonderful resource,” she said “I can
identify with someone’s loss on a very deep level and a very personal
level, and I feel that we are really putting resources out there that
help to heal.”

To access the Jewish Bereavement Project Web site, visit
www.jewishbereavement.com

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