IN A SOCIETY during which bereavement and grief are perceived to be “hidden away, unspoken, and misunderstood”, a church-run bereavement course is having a “profound and wide-reaching impact on adults of all ages”, an independent evaluation has concluded.
The Bereavement Journey, run by the Christian charity AtaLoss, is “addressing a national need for bereavement support”, the report says, and is “ideal for the numerous majority — 85-90 per cent — of bereaved individuals who don’t require or won’t profit from a clinical intervention”.
AtaLoss was founded in 2016 by the Revd Yvonne Tulloch, a former Canon for Mission at Coventry Cathedral, whose husband died suddenly in 2008 (Features, 19 October 2018). In an introduction to the report, she writes: “We are a society where people have grown up not expecting death and where we now have lost the art of support.”
The course — comprising seven sessions of movies and peer-group discussion — is currently run by churches in greater than 400 communities across the UK. It was originally devised by a grief counsellor, Jane Oundjian, and delivered for a few years in its original form at Holy Trinity, Brompton, before being re-published by AtaLoss in September 2023, with training, step-by-step instructions, and the requirement for counsellor oversight. Alongside the course is an internet site that signposts other sources of support.
The independent evaluation was carried out by Dr Becky Ward, of Youthrive Research Consultancy, who checked out 370 courses delivered locally between April 2023 and March 2025, and 7 others delivered nationally online. Feedback was obtained from 214 course leaders and 439 participants.
Almost all (96 per cent) said that the course had “helped them to grasp why they were feeling the way in which they were and the way their bereavement was affecting them”. A complete of 93 per cent said that it had helped them to “cope higher with their bereavement”, and 95 per cent said that it had “helped them to process their loss”.
Dr Ward writes: “The most vital aspect of the course, which was repeated repeatedly, was the support of the group, of those who understood their feelings and were walking the identical path together. Participants talked about their family and friends wanting to alter the topic or avoid conversations — perhaps through fear of not knowing what to say or saying the improper thing — and the way the mutual support of the group helped them to maintain going to the course, even once they didn’t wish to exit.”
In total, 79 per cent of all participants, from quite a lot of faith or no-faith backgrounds, attended the optional final session on faith. Ninety-five per cent said that they found the session to be helpful.
“Although some course leaders were hesitant over the religion session, participants were overwhelmingly positive,” Dr Ward writes. “Their responses varied in accordance with differing faith perspectives, but they described a general sense of comfort from Session 7, during which they benefited from considering questions of religion and praying, even once they had difficult feelings.”
