Getting closure on our closure

Events of late at Jewish Choice have focused our minds. How, in the context of delivering the bad news of our closure later this year, do we translate the continuing best of care for our residents into the best of advice for our families?

Whenever delivering bad news, the messenger inevitably is the one shot, but that is their role and they’re well-prepared for it. Far more deserving of attention is the impact on the recipient.

Counselling convention tells us that there are 5 broad stages of the recipient coping in travelling towards some level of closure.

Of course there is initial shock, and emotions can never be neatly packaged or feelings experienced in a linear fashion.

So, the 5 stages should perhaps instead be considered a framework within which we’ll bounce from one to the other, until we become attuned to the idea and until we can manage the impact of the change, loss, grief, or a ‘break’ with what we have become used to and comfortable with.

We might be in any of these stages at any time and can swing backwards and forwards, in and out of them. In broad terms these might be translated as follows…

 Denial

Trying to avoid the inevitable

– some families haven’t begun looking into a move as yet

 Anger

Frustrated outpouring of bottled-up emotion

– some are very angry with us that they are having to face the prospect of moving their loved ones, when they had believed they were settled for good

 Bargaining

Seeking in vain for a way out

– some are still thinking fundraising could save the home

 Depression

Realisation of the inevitable

– some are in and out of the mindset thinking whether a move is actually achievable

 Acceptance

Finally finding the way forward

– some are now seeking – and finding – realistic solutions

Perhaps if we acknowledge the fact that the anticipation and the actuality of the bad news is hard to accept, we might then make sense of what we are feeling and make some headway. We hope the support we are providing is useful and we are happy to receive feedback and requests for any help to support residents to find their new home.