Bereavement Training International celebrates milestone Anniversary
It’s five years since Bereavement Training International launched in 2019. Since then they’ve provided bespoke training for around 10,000 professionals across the UK and beyond, helping them offer families the best possible support and care following the death of a baby or child.
BTI’s training is designed for all professionals who provide care for parents when a pregnancy ends unexpectedly or when a baby or child dies. This includes midwives and student midwives, obstetricians, neonatal, paediatric and gynaecology staff, sonographers, GPs and other primary care providers, hospice staff, health visitors, counsellors, and chaplains.
Crucially, BTI’s successful partnerships with some of the country’s leading baby loss charities mean that professionals can often access this specialised training at no cost to them.
Faye Hill, Head of Operations at Abigail’s Footsteps said, ‘We are incredibly proud of our five year partnership with BTI. Together we’ve funded and trained over 4,750 healthcare professionals equipping them with the skills and compassion to better support families facing baby loss.’
And BTI’s training really makes a difference, as can be seen from the glowing testimonials they regularly receive from people they’ve worked with.
Specialist Bereavement midwife Debbie Thorpe wrote to thank BTI for, ‘the fabulous study day … it was so informative and we all learnt so much. The feedback has been great and some have come to find me just to tell me how much you, Paula, had inspired them to learning more about bereavement care.’
One senior midwifery lecturer wrote to thank BTI following a recent study day saying ‘the feedback from students has been fantastic’, another wrote to say that their students had ‘all benefited hugely from the learning provided … I am sure this will translate into their practice.’
Paula has consulted on projects such as the National Bereavement Care Pathway, Baby Loss Awareness Week, NHS England Child Death Booklet, and the Pan London Neonatal Complex and Palliative Care Nurse role. She has also been a member of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Baby Loss since its inception in 2016 and in 2020 Paula was invited to join Donna Ockenden’s team as Support Service Lead for the Shrewsbury & Telford NHS Trust Maternity Review.
As we approach BTI’s 5th anniversary we sat down with Paula to reflect on Bereavement Training International’s work, as well as some exciting plans for the future.
How does it feel to be approaching your 5th anniversary?
The time has flown by, in the summer of 2019 it was just an idea and five years on I am so proud of what we have achieved. It has been a real privilege to work with so many people, who all have a strong desire to provide the best possible care and support to families at a time when they need it the most.
What is it that makes your training special?
Our training offering has evolved into something that we believe is quite unique. As well as sharing UK baby loss statistics and updating groups on the latest developments in the baby loss world, learning from parents lived experience is always at the centre of our training days. So, what is it that makes our training days unique? We place a lot of importance on recognising the impact on professionals who provide baby loss support to parents. We work hard to create a safe, confidential and non-judgemental space where participants, through facilitated and guided discussions, can think about and share their feelings associated with providing support to parents who are going through the most traumatic kind of loss, that of a much wanted and loved child.
Why do you think there’s been such a demand for your services?
When I look back and see the number of organisations and the volume of people who have accessed our training, I feel truly humbled. I think that in the last few years maternity reviews and other baby loss related stories have been widely reported. This has helped to break down the taboo around baby loss. It is now more widely acknowledged that all parents who experience baby loss should receive the best possible level of care and that healthcare professionals in turn need to feel confident and better skilled to deliver that care.
Do you only work with health professionals?
We work predominantly with healthcare professionals but also deliver our training to a variety of other people who work in the baby loss world, including charity staff and volunteers, children’s hospice teams, mindful birth teachers, counsellors and other therapists whose work involves supporting parents when a pregnancy ends unexpectedly and when a baby dies. We have also worked with commercial and corporate organisations, providing training in the workplace to help people think about supporting a member of staff returning to work following baby loss. More recently we have worked in partnership with a law firm, providing training for their clinical negligence and serious injury lawyers.
What do you think have been the greatest achievements of BTI?
Forming partnerships with wonderful charities like Abigail’s Footsteps has enabled us to reach out to so many professionals and helped us to ensure that this much needed but not yet mandated specialised training, is available and accessible at no cost to them.
Have there been any surprises along the way?
Just five months after we launched BTI the world was plunged into the first lockdown of the pandemic. We had to very quickly learn how to deliver our training online, something that I had never imagined doing suddenly became a reality. I was surprised by how effective our online training became; we are still delivering some Abigail’s Footsteps online training alongside our in person offering.
What are your plans for the future?
A large part of our training centres around how to help professionals to take good care of themselves and to acknowledge that this element of their work may take an emotional toll on them. We are now in the planning stages, working in partnership with a baby loss charity, of designing a wellness retreat for healthcare professionals. As the demand for our services continues to grow, we will be looking at bringing on board more facilitators to deliver our training to ensure that we can keep up with the demand for our much-needed work.
For further information and to find out how you can book a training or consultancy session:
Email admin@bereavementtraining.com
Website www.bereavementtraining.com
LinkedIn: paula-abramson-786683162
Twitter/X: twitter.com/paulaabramson3