Reflection Room: Addressing Grief in a Hospice Setting

The Saint Elizabeth Foundation is a national registered charity, working to strengthen community health care through innovative models, partnerships, and leading practices - with a specific focus on aging and older adults and end-of-life (EOL) care. Our proposed project is to mobilize knowledge within hospice care across Canada by facilitating opportunities to install Reflection Rooms that support grief work for aging and older adults involved with hospice care. Reflection Rooms are evidence-based, participatory art installations that support people to talk about dying, death, and grief by providing an immersive space for visitors to read stories written by others and write and share their own stories. The Saint Elizabeth Foundation, in partnership with the Canadian Hospice Palliative Care Association, will equip hospices across Canada (n=150) with kits which will allow for the installation of Reflections Rooms that my support grief work and provide support for mental health and well-being for aging Canadians involved in hopsice care. The rationale for the proposed project comes from the urgent need for more community-based grief supports particularly in the wake of COVID-19. Many aging Canadians feel lost and alone during bereavement. Grief support is needed in hospices across Canada to allow those using services and working in the setting to have a quiet space to rest and reflect, disclose emotions, and feel connected to others through sharing stories. Over the last two years the Saint Elizabeth Foundation supported the Reflection Room research project run by the SE Research Centre that investigated how Reflection Rooms increase comfort talking about dying and death in community and health care settions (e.g., hospicies) and how the address pandemic-related grief in long-term care homes in Ontario.