For those working in care homes, residents often begin to feel like family. As a carer, you’ll spend much of your time taking care of residents and keeping them company, so it’s natural for the relationship to develop into a close friendship.
When the time comes and residents sadly pass away, care teams can be left with the responsibility of ensuring the resident is taken care of respectfully. More importantly, you and your team are left feeling bereaved, while still needing to ensure other residents are cared for, as well as supporting each other.
In some scenarios, family of residents live far away, or unfortunately, some residents don’t have close family. In this situation, you need to be able to trust someone to take care of the resident once they have passed, and the situation needs to be handled sensitively and compassionately.
Amid these challenging times, care home teams need to be able to rely on their funeral directors to guide them through the process and plan a service that is meaningful to those left behind, and honours the individual who has passed.
So, how can funeral directors support you?
- Offer visits to the premises – during funeral planning or dealing with the death of a close friend or resident, it can be daunting to visit a funeral directors. To take away the initial anxiety of the planning of a funeral, before a resident passes, funeral directors could invite care home teams to visit the premises and get to know some members of the team. That way, when a resident passes away, you will already be familiar with the facilities and the people who will be carrying out the funeral.
- Care home visits – some funeral directors offer visits to care homes, to provide teams with training and allow residents to share their wishes for their funerals. As a gesture of good will, Mortons offers free puzzle books to care home residents on these visits, allowing them to feel at ease about the thought of funeral planning.
- Pre-planning support – in addition to visits, or during the visits themselves, funeral directors can offer advice and support on funeral pre-planning. They can offer you advice as to how to approach someone about the possibility of pre-planning their funeral, as well as explaining the process, so you can share the information accurately with residents and their families. Learn more about our pre-planning support.
- A service that honours the individual – for any funeral, the focus is honouring the life of the individual who has passed away and ensuring it is meaningful to those left behind. Funeral directors will guide you through the process of funeral planning, ensuring the funeral reflects the wishes of those passed and their loved ones.
- After the funeral – losing anybody is challenging. For many, the funeral is simply the part of the grieving process. At Mortons, we understand this and offer support following the funeral for anyone who may need it. This includes the Mortons Monday Club, the yearly Tree of Light Remembrance service and help with creating lasting tributes to those who have passed away, amongst many other services.
For more information about how Mortons can guide you through the process of bereavement, funeral planning and support after the funeral, get in touch or call 0121 476 9111