Here are two stories that offer brief but comprehensive advice, first, about the nature of grief and, second, about how to be helpful to grieving people. Both feature lists of seven items that communicate -- in just a few minutes -- information that could be quite helpful to bereaved people and to anyone who wants to offer assistance to the bereaved.

Ashley Davis Bush, in a post on HuffPost Healthy Living, outlines "seven principles ... on grief intelligence":

1. Grief is a normal reaction.
2. Grief is hard work.
3. Grief doesn't offer closure.
4. Grief is lifelong.
5. Grievers need to stay connected to the deceased.
6. Grievers are changed forever.
7. Grievers can choose transcendence.

Laura McMullen of U.S.News & World Report offers "7 Ways to Help a Loved One Grieve," which features advice from a handful of renowned grief experts, including Ken Doka, Marty Tousley, and Robert Neimeyer:

1. Open a line of communication.
2. Listen more than you talk.
3. Choose your words wisely.
4. Offer your help.
5. Say the deceased's name.
6. Check in weeks and months later.
7. Share memories.

I applaud attempts by bereaved people to reach out to others and help them with their grief, and this week, I encountered an excellent example of such an endeavor in the Grieving Dads Project. The project was created by Kelly Farley, who was crippled by his grief after the deaths, 18 months apart, of his two very young children (not from suicide):

I didn't want to get out of bed, and for the most part I didn't for about 3 months. All of the pain from the loss of Noah and all of the pain I buried deep inside after the loss of Katie rushed to the surface. I couldn't cope.

Kelly's healing came in part from the power of peer support, and he praises some of the qualities of peer helpers:

They were people that didn't judge you or feel uncomfortable when you started to cry while telling them your story. They embraced you and checked in with you on a regular basis. They would take your calls regardless of what they were doing at the time. They provided me compassion, sympathy and hope. They never told me to toughen up and plow through it.

The Grieving Dads Project came from a promise Kelly made ...

... to Katie, Noah and myself that once I was strong enough, I would reach out to other dads that have lost a child and help them come to terms with their loss and to help them find their way.

Last month, Susan Silk and Barry Goldman wrote for the Los Angeles Times a supremely insightful piece about interacting with people in distress, titled "How Not to Say the Wrong Thing." If a person applies their advice to talking to the bereaved, it's about as good as it gets:

Draw a circle. This is the center ring. In it, put the name of the person at the center of the current trauma ... Now draw a larger circle around the first one. In that ring put the name of the person next closest to the trauma ... Repeat the process as many times as you need to. In each larger ring put the next closest people. Parents and children before more distant relatives. Intimate friends in smaller rings, less intimate friends in larger ones ... Here are the rules. The person in the center ring can say anything she wants to anyone, anywhere. She can kvetch and complain and whine and moan and curse the heavens and say, "Life is unfair" and "Why me?" That's the one payoff for being in the center ring ... Everyone else can say those things too, but only to people in larger rings.

Silk and Goldman call this "The Ring Theory." Its guiding principle is "Comfort IN, dump OUT." That means a person's role is to give comfort and support -- and nothing else -- to anyone in a smaller ring than he or she occupies (here's an illustration). If a person needs to share his or her own worry or distress or debate or criticism (or personal philosophy), that's OK, "just do it to someone in a bigger ring."

While the Ring Theory may require exceptions to the rule, it's a brilliant starting place for orienting oneself before interacting with someone who is bereaved -- and I highly recommend it.

An excellent resource is now available to help employers respond effectively when an employee dies by suicide. The resource, "A Manager's Guide to Suicide Postvention in the Workplace," is aptly subtitled "10 Action Steps for Dealing with the Aftermath of a Suicide" and is available as a free download. The Guide begins with a clear definition of the word postvention, a term unfamiliar to many people outside the suicide prevention field:

Postvention is psychological first aid, crisis intervention, and other support offered after a suicide to affected individuals or the workplace as a whole to alleviate possible negative effects of the event.

The Guide outlines the vital roles managers play when a crisis situation occurs in a workplace, including fostering effective communications, providing helpful resources, and setting an example for employees. The 10 action steps are designed for implementation in any work setting, and the Guide concisely explains the rationale for each step, illustrates its implementation, provides a checklist of substeps, and points to authoritative resources supporting its recommendations.

It also includes templates to guide employers in communicating news of a death to employees and to the public.

The Action Steps are:

The American avant garde artist Andy Warhol said everybody gets 15 minutes of fame, and while I'm having my time in the spotlight, I want to share my words of gratitude with people to whom I am connected (because the theme of the entire affair is actually connection). The American Association of Suicidology honored me last week with the 2013 Survivor Recognition Award,* which "recognizes the efforts of one special survivor every year ... [who] used their own loss and grief to provide comfort and encouragement and healthy role-modeling to others bereaved by suicide in their community, state, or nation." I'd simply like to post my acceptance speech here, and leave it at that:

I ... didn't know how to say how deeply thankful I am in just a few words, so I thought I would try to explain what my intention has been in all this time -- for however imperfect I've been at accomplishing it, this is what I've tried to do:

I've tried to make my words and actions on behalf of survivors and on behalf of suicide prevention ... represent my gratitude for the great healing that has come to me over this almost 35 years now since my father killed himself. I've literally tried to carry in my mind and in my heart the entire web of relationships that make up my experience over those many decades ... and that awareness of the web of relationships that we are in has ... shown me how we are truly all connected. I've come to know that whatever happens to one of us, affects us all. So what I have ... tried to do is just to be compassionate toward the person who is in front of me in the moment -- because that's really all I can do. But I've found that that makes all of the difference in the world sometimes, not just to the person in front of me, but sometimes it makes all the world of difference for me -- and truly it is what I believe might change our world.

I also want to thank the fellowship of the American Association of Suicidology -- for all of you collectively and many of you individually have ... contributed to the meaning that I have found from my father's death and made me able to apply it in my own life. In one way or another, I ... do love each and every one of you, and that comes from many, many places, many sources -- but basically I simply believe that we're all in this together ... We are all in this together, and I am so, so grateful for the work we share. The goal that we are striving toward is to alleviate the pain and suffering ... that causes people to die by suicide and that we suffer in the aftermath of suicide -- and what a noble cause.

What was the worst imaginable nightmare -- truly an event that broke not only my heart but my spirit -- from that event has come a fantastically powerful positive force that I cannot explain, but that I am infinitely grateful for.

So I would just like to thank you one and all for this great honor. I will ... cherish this moment for the rest of my life. Thank you so much.

*(To learn more about the award and see a list of past recipients, go here, and to read my short bio, go here.)

© 2013 Unified Community Solutions. All Rights Reserved.

I was on a panel at the American Association of Suicidology (AAS) national conference last week in Austin, Texas, that introduced new guiding principles for Suicide Bereavement Support Groups (SBSG) in the United States. The guiding principles were developed by an AAS work group last year, and have been approved by the AAS board of directors. These guiding principles provide a starting place for the development of best practices for support groups designed to help people who have lost a loved one to suicide cope with their grief.

Work group chairperson Doreen Marshall of Argosy University facilitated the presentation in Austin on Saturday, and she was joined by me and fellow work group member Susan Beaton of Australia's Beyond Blue.* According to Marshall, the work group intended for the principles ...

... to be less prescriptive, easy to implement, and require few resources ... We felt it was ... important to develop guiding principles by which survivors could ... evaluate the groups they were leading and attending in addition to providing some guidance toward best practices.

Beaton, who played a role in the development of Australia's support group standards -- on which the AAS guiding principles are based -- said many lessons are being learned as the field of suicide grief support increasingly focuses on strengthening the effectiveness of support groups and other services. Her aspirations include ...

... further research ... to determine types and modalities of suicide bereavement support related to better client outcomes, ... a national community of practice for SBSG facilitators, ... [and] funding ... for ongoing evaluation.

I presented an experiential workshop for survivors of suicide loss -- titled "Suicide Bereavement: Personal Meanings"¹ -- at the Massachusetts Suicide Prevention Conference last week, and of the 17 people who attended, two identified themselves as clinicians who are survivors of a client's suicide. I am very pleased that they chose to attend, because the definition of "survivor" ought to be broad enough to include anyone who has been deeply affected by a suicide. For many clinicians, a client's death by suicide certainly causes profound grief, and they deserve compassionate support for their bereavement no less than any other "category" of survivor does.

Thankfully, there is a comprehensive resource available for clinicians who lose a client to suicide, the Clinician Survivor Task Force website,² maintained by John McIntosh for the American Association of Suicidology. The task force provides ...

... consultation, support and education to psychotherapists and other mental health professionals to assist them in understanding and responding to their personal/professional loss resulting from the suicide death of a patient/client and/or family member.

The Winnipeg Suicide Prevention Network has published "A Guide for Early Responders Supporting Survivors Bereaved by Suicide" (free download*), which fills a real need in the field of suicide grief support. Those who work in law enforcement, emergency medical services, and fire departments are often the first people on the scene of a suicide fatality, and their compassion and helpfulness can make a big difference to the loved ones of the deceased.

Early responders play a vital role in supporting people who have lost someone they care about, someone they know who has died by suicide. Suicide loss is profoundly different than other loss and grief in that it is a intentional act that can have crippling effects for the family, friends and other survivors. Suicide ... is a complex, multi-faceted problem leaving some survivors who have a loved one die by suicide with their life as they knew it changed forever.

The guide begins by explaining the unique characteristics of suicide loss and describing the reactions of survivors that commonly occur, framing its advice with this very helpful observation:

Whatever reactions, feelings, or questions the survivor has ... this is understandable and alright considering the terrible situation and loss they have experienced. There is no right or wrong way to feel, respond or grieve.

Jerry Reed, director of the Suicide Prevention Resource Center, posted to his "Director's Blog" this month an appeal ...

... to expand efforts to encourage and support attempt survivors in bringing their expertise to the struggle against suicide, and their firsthand experience with facing and triumphing over suicide to others at risk through peer support networks.

In making his appeal to strengthen peer support efforts for survivors of suicide attempts (people who have made a suicide attempt but lived), Jerry also pointed to the history of survivors of suicide loss (i.e., people bereaved by suicide) as partners in suicide prevention and as peer helpers caring for others who have lost a loved one to suicide:

Those bereaved by suicide loss ... form an essential and active part of the suicide prevention community. It is difficult to think of a major suicide prevention organization or initiative that does not include persons bereaved by suicide. Those who have lost a loved one to suicide are reaching out and supporting one another in support groups as well as providing support and advocacy for suicide prevention.

I welcome Jerry's enthusiastic focus on the value of peer support to our field -- the value of peer support both in preventing suicide among those who are at risk and in providing assistance to those bereaved after a fatality -- and I said so in a comment to his post, where I wrote,

The police department in the county of Gloucestershire, England, "is believed to be the first in the country to produce guidelines designed to help officers deal with people when a loved one has taken their own life," according to a report in the local newspaper.

Gloucestershire Police Commissioner Martin Surl explains the importance of the guidelines for law enforcement:

"It's a sad fact, and surprising in this day and age, that ... the [suicide] bereaved are not immediately offered support in the same way as victims of crime. As a result, they may not always receive the help they are entitled to, and this is an area where I hope we can help. Very often a police officer is the first 'official' person they come into contact with, so it's very important [that the police are] equipped to deal with what is always a very difficult and sensitive situation."

[Editorial Comment: I am hopeful that this blog post on the work in the U.K. raises awareness about this vital need among law enforcement officers and prompts collaborative efforts in the United States to identify and develop guidelines that can be implemented systematically across the country to help meet the needs of survivors of suicide loss in the immediate aftermath of a death.]