Homewood nonprofit provides comfort after loss

For 22 years, Community Grief Support has been providing their services to individuals struggling to move on from the grief of a loss.

Steve Sweatt, clinical director for the Homewood-based nonprofit, said grief and mourning are normal emotional expressions after the loss of a person — or even a place, pet or thing — that holds tremendous value for an individual. What Community Grief Support does is provide a safe space for people to go through this process of loss, along with helping them “learn and identify coping skills.”

Originally founded by a retired southern Baptist minister who transitioned into bereavement care and education, Community Grief Support is faith-based but does not gear their services toward a specific faith group. Their mission is “to enhance the quality of life for bereaved adults who face the challenge of rebuilding their lives without their loved ones.” Programming that they offer includes private one-on-one counseling, support groups, friendship groups and community education. 

Community Grief Support also offers a special service for businesses, Grief in the Workplace, where companies and their employees that have experienced a loss of their own can come together for a group session in which they figure out how to grieve and cope together. Group sessions, Sweatt said, are their most prevalent service.

“A lot of people like the groups because they report feeling isolated and alone,” Sweatt said. “The groups provide support.”

It is in these group sessions that individuals dealing with loss and entering the grieving process are able to come together, compare experiences and realize that what they are feeling is normal. As far as how each person with their mourning process, Sweatt said it varies depending on their personal characteristics. For example, if the individual has a history of resiliency, they tend to fare better in the mourning process than someone who has had a history of struggling with their mental health.

Key strategies that Community Grief Support uses when helping their patients are emotional processing, cognitive behavioral therapy and an exercise called “continuing bonds.”

“The old Freudian thinking about loss survivorship is that a bond has to be severed in order for the person to heal,” Sweatt said. “That’s not the case.”

With the continuing bonds exercises, patients engage in memorialization activities like writing about their loved one, creating memory books and other things that “bring a sense of connection.” One patient came to him after the loss of his father, who was a cook in the U.S. Army, and shared a poignant memory of his father cooking grand Sunday dinners for his family. As a continuing bonds exercise, the man cooked a meal for his family similar to what his father would create.

Community Grief Support makes their services readily available to anyone who needs them. There is no cost to attend the groups or for counseling, with the organization operating off of donations and grants. They hold a Lift Your Spirits Annual Silent Auction Gala, and the Magic City Mac and Cheese Festival donates some of the proceeds to them as well.

“Most people who do go through the process of loss survivorship, their lives come back together. Of course not in the same way,” Sweatt said. “They come back stronger, more resilient. There are some that do not, but most do. Offering that to loss survivors can provide comfort.”

Community Grief Support is located at 1119 Oxmoor Road in Homewood. For more information on their services and to register for a session, call 870-8667 or visit communitygriefsupport.org.