Grief Journey UK appoints new director
Grief Journey UK has appointed a new director of bereavement care and education.
Catherine Betley, who had recently been working as director of services with Cruse Bereavement Care, has taken on the role having joined Grief Journey in November 2012.
Catherine worked with Cruse in various regional and national roles from early 2002 and left in May 2012 to establish her own company, Professional Help, to provide services to voluntary, community and faith sector organisations.
Commenting on her appointment, Catherine said: “I have been working with Bill to develop the UK programme for the Centre for the Grief Journey. I will be spearheading the roll-out of the Grief Journey Support System across the UK, working with funeral directors to develop and implement grief support programmes in their communities; setting up training courses for facilitators; and providing ‘on the ground’ assistance to new community programmes.”
She added: “I’m most looking forward to working with funeral businesses across the UK to ensure that good bereavement care is readily available at the heart of local communities.”
Dr Bill Webster said that Catherine brings her expertise to help establish local community bereavement care programmes, adding to the 25 years of experience in grief support that Dr Webster already puts into a two-day training programme to help community support groups.
Three independent family funeral directors who utilised Dr Webster’s programme to help them establish Grief Journey Essex recently won the Community Category of the Essex Business Excellence Awards 2012.
