If you are grieving
People can feel a range of emotions after someone has died. These emotions vary from person to person. There is no right or wrong way, just different ways of grieving. The Better Health Channel has a fact sheet on Grief Explained, while the Palliative Care Australia (PCA) Living Caring Working website has a section on Understanding grief.

Coping with grief can be overwhelming. Some groups describe the phases of grief that many people go through and strategies that can help manage grief and grieving. HelpGuide and Tobin Brothers have useful resources in this area. There is also information for children, available from the Kids Health website on death and grief and looking after yourself.

Sometimes it can help to hear from other people who have grieved a loss. The Irish Hospice Foundation has leaflets on grief and loss as well as some that have been written by volunteers who tell their own stories. The PCA Living Caring Working website also has a leaflet giving ideas on how to help you through your grief.

When others are grieving
It can be difficult to watch someone who is grieving, not knowing what to do or how to help. Information from the PCA Living Caring Working website may help in understanding someone who is grieving. Palliative Care Victoria has information on how to help someone who is grieving.

Differences in grief and loss
There are differences in the ways in which we grieve. There are also differences in the circumstances surrounding our grief. Sometimes information tailored to specific differences may be helpful. 

Young people may need different support. The Child Bereavement Trust in the UK has produced information for this group. Managing grief better: people with intellectual disabilities is also from a UK site about intellectual disabilities and grief.

The Grieflink Website has information for specific groups including:

• Indigenous grief
• Grief in different cultures
• Grief reactions associated with HIV/AIDS related death
• Grief reactions associated with the death of a gay partner
• Unrecognised or hidden grief
• Grief reactions associated with a death in the workplace.

This page was created on 26 March 2007 and is due for review in March 2009