A Brief History of Bereaved Families of Ontario-Toronto

In the beginning…

In 1977, John McKibbon, part of the chaplaincy department of the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, whose own daughter had died of leukemia, initiated a parental bereavement support program endorsed by the hospital’s chaplain, Hugh Gemmell. Margaret Darte, Marilyn Lee, Diane Oakes Foster and Irene Clarfield, participants in this program then became involved in the development of a bereavement support program now known as Bereaved Families of Ontario (BFO). For this act and their ongoing efforts in building our organization, in 1998 our four founders received the Ontario Medal of Good Citizenship from The Honourable Hilary Weston, Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario.

The purpose of BFO was to create a caring, non-judgmental environment where bereaved parents could facilitate other bereaved parents towards a better understanding of the powerful emotions of grief.

We grew to meet the needs of the community…

Support programs were provided both in Toronto and in the Oakville area. While the original mission of the organization was to provide support to mothers, fathers and siblings who had experienced the death of a child in the family, the mandate was soon expanded to include supporting children, youth and young adults who had lost a parent. In addition, a program was initiated which recognized the special circumstances around supporting parents who had experienced a late miscarriage, stillbirth or newborn/infant loss as well as programs to support grandparents who had lost grandchildren.

In 1988, the Metropolitan Toronto chapter of Bereaved Families was formed. Over time, other affiliates have also formed throughout Ontario, to meet the needs of bereaved individuals in their communities.

Over the years, partnerships were developed within the Portuguese, Chinese, Italian and Spanish-speaking communities so that support groups could be offered in several different languages. Currently, BFO-Toronto is only able to provide services in English, but is working towards expanding our capacity to serve a more diverse community of bereaved families.

The core program was, and still is, mutual bereavement support groups, that are co-facilitated by bereaved parents and young adults, who have participated in a support group themselves and then completed a volunteer training program. Volunteer professional advisors support these peer volunteers. Education and outreach, including a library of books and videos, our website, a speakers’ bureau and training program are also an important facet of the BFO mission.

The Partnership between Self-Help and Professionals…

A unique aspect of BFO’s program among self-help and mutual support organizations, is our extremely close working relationship with the professional community. Since its inception, we have always worked with professionals in an advisory capacity through having a clinical consultant and a Professional Advisory Committee.

One of our founders, Margaret Darte wrote in 1984:

It has been vital to the well being and development of our bereavement follow-up program that we have had consistent, informed support from caring professionals… Professional people counselling a family during the grief that follows the death of a child are often met with, “You can’t understand, you haven’t had a child die.” Bereaved parents cannot say this to other bereaved parents. Brothers and sisters who have had a sibling die have an instant rapport with other brothers and sisters in the same situation. Nonetheless, living through the agonizing emotions of grief does not make us instant experts. Our professional team is able to support our group work with their knowledge and skills.

The Connections Project…

In 2001, BFO-Toronto applied for and received a three-year Trillium Grant to conduct a program evaluation and environmental scan. The aim was to improve our ability to respond to the needs of diverse communities in Toronto who are affected by a death in the family.

The design and implementation of a program assessment and environmental scan provided critical data to BFO-Toronto to determine future directions. Information was gathered about the level of community awareness that exists regarding BFO-Toronto, about existing bereavement services in Toronto and the success of our current program models. Most importantly, The Connections Project assisted us in articulating a vision and action plan to make BFO-Toronto a more accessible, responsive and relevant organization.

Part of this process included discussions within the BFO-Toronto community about restating our organizational values and strategic priorities to better reflect our goals. Valuable information from The Connections Project helped us begin to reach out to marginalized and under-served communities – with the goal of developing mutually beneficial partnerships with communities and organizations to build their capacity to support their own bereaved population, at the same time as building BFO-Toronto’s capacity to better serve all bereaved people.

In 2003, the Board of Directors allocated funds that allowed us to hire a Youth Outreach Worker to focus on reaching bereaved youth in schools, through offering mutual support groups in schools and also through the education and training of school personnel. Through a grant from Canadian Heritage, a Black Community Outreach Worker was hired in 2004 to begin building relationships with service-providers and bereaved individuals in the Black community and assessing how BFO-Toronto can best be of support and service.

In both outreach initiatives, our learning as an organization has been paramount. We have been challenged to think beyond our traditional models of providing support, conducted an organizational review to identify and begin to eliminate barriers for people accessing our services, and begun the process of redesigning and expanding our program and training models.

As we look to the future…

Our vision for BFO-Toronto is an organization that fosters meaningful and ongoing connections with individuals, families, communities and service-providers throughout Toronto. Our offices are moving in the fall of 2006 to a more community-based and accessible space, with the hope of someday being able to offer programs off-site in different locations throughout the city.

We will continue to facilitate opportunities for bereaved children, youth and adults to come together under the model of mutual support. Soon we will be expanding our current programs to include parenting education and support groups for people caring for bereaved children, as well as groups for bereaved spouses, and adults who have lost a parent or sibling. In keeping with our belief that everyone grieves uniquely, we will strive to develop diverse programming that offers choices and options to bereaved individuals and families.

Our hope is that we can expand our collective ability to “help the healing begin” for those who lives have been touched by the pain of losing a loved one.