Presentations & Professional Development

Our current approved course: “Accompanying Parents When a Baby Dies: Developing Your Own Philosophy of Care”

While many of us would rather not think about babies dying, the truth is sometimes they do die. When they do, it is our moral obligation as care providers to usher families through that loss experience. Research is conclusive that when we do this well, our attitudes and communication skills positively impact parents’ decision-making, resilience, and long-term well-being. On the flip side, when we are unsure of our care and lack skills and confidence, research finds that down the road, patients’ grief is exacerbated and their healing is hindered. With so many new nurses in the field, there is an unprecedented need for training and support around perinatal bereavement care, both for the well-being of our patients, but also for the well-being of our staff.

Empty Arms has served nearly a thousand individuals over the past 14 years, and speaker Carol McMurrich carries all those stories with her. Every story involves the intersection of health care with the loss experience. How parents perceive the care they receive from doctors, nurses, midwives, and social workers profoundly affects how they experience the trauma of their loss as it takes place, as well as affects their ability to make good decisions, build resilience, and thrive after discharge.

Empty Arms offers tailored, accredited professional development opportunities to increase your staff’s skills, language, and general fluency and comfort around perinatal bereavement care. With the ability to choose when, where, and how your program is presented, Empty Arms offers the ultimate flexibility so you can gift your staff with the tools they need to thrive while offering bereavement care to families in your facility.

What we offer can best be summed up in the words of Nursing Practice Specialist Beth West of Massachusetts General/ Hospital, who worked with us this fall to plan a January 2022 training with their Labor and Delivery Staff:

Carol McMurrich from Empty Arms Bereavement Support presented a program for our L&D staff nurses here at Massachusetts General hospital. Our audience, we knew, would span a lifetime of experience as staff nurses, from 3 months to 34 years.  We needed a personalized program that would fit the needs of our staff, within our education budget, and one that could capture and hold the attention of staff over 4-5 hours.  Carol over delivered on all three fronts.  From the outset of planning the program, Carol was accommodating and informative and helped us to understand her process.  Further, and more importantly, she helped us to better understand what we needed and wanted to provide for our staff.  When we first met Carol, we honestly were not sure where to focus our educational energies. She guided us, talked about programs she had presented in the past, and encouraged us to complete a needs assessment with our staff. Over the course of many weeks, during which Carol was incredibly generous with her time, we discussed and planned our program. Then, after all of our advertising, with every seat full and just 5 days before the event, we had to switch to an online platform. I was so disappointed and worried the program just wouldn’t be successful.  Carol was the consummate professional, calmed our concerns and she pulled off what was one of the most engaging education days that I have ever been involved in. What was planned to last 4 hours (abbreviated because we thought an online platform would dictate this) stretched to five hours with all the active participation and questions. We could see staff leaning into their screens, raising their virtual hands, and using the chat to ask many questions.  Staff rated the offering with high marks and are asking for Carol to come back to provide more education which we are planning on doing.

This course is as much about helping staff to learn what words and actions help bereaved families as it is an intervention so staff will come away from bereavement work feeling fulfilled by what they have been able to offer someone, rather than walking away feeling traumatized or anxious.

Research has shown what most helps health care providers to be grounded in bereavement work is specific training around bereavement care. This is followed closely by the opportunity to debrief with, connect with, and build a narrative with other staff following a loss, which simply cannot be done when staff is not comfortable talking about loss and its aftermath.

When your staff is grounded in bereavement work, it has an enormous impact on how they experience caring for the bereaved and how they are– or are not– stressed or emotionally harmed in the process. In addition, your patient experience is vastly improved when your staff is skilled and well-informed.

Please consider an Empty Arms training for your staff this year. We are currently booking and look forward to hearing from you!

As a bereaved parent and experienced facilitator of Empty Arms, Carol weaves her own experience and that of many others she has worked with (with permission) to create an intimate, personal presentation with adequate time for participants to share their stories, emotions, and concerns. Knowing the impact educating providers can have on the experience of families experiencing loss, professional trainings are one of Carol’s favorite things to do.