Pilgrims Briar Patch Center for Grieving Families
Posted by Vi Hughes on Dec 14, 2016
On Tuesday, we heard from Cheryl Salter -Roberts (pictured), Manager and Grief Educator for the Pilgrims Hospice Society and Pilgrims Briar Patch Center for Grieving Families.
They have two locations where they offer their services, one in west Edmonton, and the other in Sherwood Park. They provide day programs, three days a week, for terminally ill people, to provide a respite for caregivers, and they also offer counselling services to children, young people and families who are grieving the loss of a loved one. Their hospice program is modeled after the UK hospice concept and aims to add life to the remaining days at the end of life. They also have a compassionate companions program that visits people at their place of residence, home or hospital. In addition, last summer they began to offer a summer day camp for grieving children.
Many people do not have the words to express their grief, especially, children and young people, so the programs they offer involve creative means of expression, to allow them to work through their grief. Currently, the number one cause of death in Alberta is suicide and the number two cause is accidents, both of which can be particularly difficult to understand.
Their overall yearly budget is just under one million dollars, of which about twelve percent, for ten patients, is covered by Alberta Health Care. The remainder is raised by donations through several functions that take place throughout the year. They currently have five full time staff, several part time staff and over eighty trained volunteers to help with their programs.
