Newsletter August Updates
Dying to Know Day and transitions
Whilst our gaze is set on deepening the connections and relationships as we build our new strategy together with CCNB, Community Care Northern Beaches, we can’t help but be in awe of the end-of-life space as it stands now in 2021. There are so many creatives, writers, inventors, founders, clinicians, and compassionate advocates contributing to changing the landscape!
Having a national influence in growing quality end-of-life conversations is what the new leadership is enabling as a result of our merger and over the coming months, the team look forward to updating you about how CCNB and Groundswell are creating even more positive change in the lives of Australians considering end-of-life issues at any stage.
Some Snappy Project updates:
Our project with NSW Health ‘My Way - Your Say’ Advance Care Planning with aged care communities is on hold pending lockdown restrictions.
We continue online training for Health Connectors program in NSW.
Our Creative Legacy artists are developing a Do-it-Yourself Legacy kit (we cant wait to see it!).
We’re hosting conversations with local councils to explore how a peer-to-peer network supports planning for better end-of-life outcomes in their communities to establish a community of practice.
Our schools continue to meet and share their grief and loss projects. Connection with nature is a popular theme and entry point to the conversation.
Planned…
What the team is REALLY excited about is our community of conversations process on the issues and topics that you care about so look out for invitations.
My time with GroundSwell has come to an end. I give thanks for the trusted partnerships and the many inspiring conversations and kind people I’ve had the pleasure of engaging with while I’ve been in the job. I look forward to seeing the evolution of relationships and partnerships at every level, grassroots and across the system, to really change the dying landscape for the better.
Go well everyone, Jess
CCNB CEO, Gary Jacobson, is delighted to announce that Jess will be taking up a newly created role with CCNB, leading the CCNB Community Capital Foundation. The CCNB Community Capital Foundation seeks to support small community innovators looking to make big improvements in the lives of Australians.
Dying to Know Day update
Unlike past years, we will continue to see events and gatherings for Dying to Know Day through to the end of the year. Lockdowns across the country have seen many events pivot from face to face to an online setting, while others will wait for the opening when we will be able to connect in person. Our champions will not let the conversation die, however they need to happen this year.
Dying to Know Day reminds us not only of how much we all share but about what is important in our affluent, complex society and how simple it is to honour what we all agree is important: conversation, choice, dignity, and respect.
In a post-covid Australia, the Groundswell Team will commence a three-year strategic march for Dying to Know Day to become an observed series of events every August in every part of the country. We will aim to reach workplaces, health settings, households, communities, rural, remote and metropolitan. Our success will manifest in the ways we bring Australians into shared conversations about dying as an important part of living. Our impact will be the increased numbers of Australians exercising choice and control over how they want to live and how they want to die.
Dying to Know Day will be the flagship for respect and dignity at end of life.
We are in the process of compiling Dying to Know Day event recordings held online in 2021. If you would like to add your event, webinar, or interactive session to the page, please email Cherelle at cherelle@thegroundswellproject.com.
View Dying to Know day RECORDINGS and MEDIA page here
As always, thanks to the many individuals and communities across Australia who have been involved in Dying to Know Day during 2021.
A Dying to Know day Featured event
1 Funeral home | 5 coffins | 5 artists | 5 charities | 1 auction
This year the team at Alan Harris McDonald and 5 talented local artists in conjunction with The Groundswell Project ‘Dying to Know Day’ campaign will be turning the tables on the relationship and perspective our society has on what a coffin means to them. Click here or on the image below to read more…
We believe that end-of-life conversations are best done WAY BEFORE Emergency.
We advocate for pretty much any other place.
Lounge rooms. Dinner tables. During long walks. Over soup. With cake.
A hand-written note, delivered with love, will also get the job done.
The Groundswell Team
