Workshop Addresses Life After Loss

SAN MARCOS, CA, March 20, 2013 (Press-News.org) The California State University Institute for Palliative Care at California State University San Marcos (CSUSM) is pleased to offer a special workshop for anyone who has experienced a loss - of a spouse, a job, a best friend or companion - and needs help picking up the pieces. The "Reinventing Yourself After a Loss" retreat is scheduled for 8:30am - 4:30 pm on April 20, with a follow-up session from 5:30-7:30pm on May 8. The first session will take place at Mission San Luis Rey in Oceanside, Calif., and the second session will be held at CSUSM's main campus.

The two-part workshop is designed to help attendees find their way back to not just survive, but thrive in the wake of a truly challenging life event. In the first session, students will learn, in a comfortable, serene setting, the skills and resources needed to reinvent themselves. Then, a few weeks later, after having had a chance to put what they have learned into action, attendees will return for a "tune-up" session with encouraging friends and coaches.

"When you've experienced a loss, your world can go from comfortable and familiar one minute, to painful and disorienting the next," says Helen McNeal, executive director of the CSU Institute for Palliative Care. "This experience can be even more troubling when the rest of the world appears to go on as if nothing has happened."

The retreat will be led by Noreen Carrington, MA, LMFT, director of The Center for Grief Care and Education at The Institute for Palliative Medicine at San Diego Hospice. Carrington, who has worked in the field of grief and loss since 1992, develops and teaches several courses on a variety of aspects of grief and loss including Grief in the Workplace, Professional Resilience: Rediscovering Our Heart and Complicated Grief.

For more information or to register, call 760-750-8707 or visit the Institute for Palliative Care website at www.csupalliativecare.org.

About the CSU Institute for Palliative Care
The CSU Institute for Palliative Care is America's first statewide educational and workforce development initiative dedicated to palliative care. The Institute offers professional development and continuing education courses designed to enhance the skills of current and future health care professionals , as well as programs to build palliative care awareness in the community. Courses offered initially at the CSUSM campus will be part of a model for palliative care workforce development and community awareness that will be available to other interested campuses in California and beyond. To learn more about the CSU Institute for Palliative Care, visit www.csupalliativecare.org.