Personalized Text Messaging Supports Grieving Families During Pandemic

​Hospice of the Western Reserve (HWR) recently added personalized text messaging as an option to support those who are grieving. The innovative new service is provided in collaboration with the Seattle-based company, Grief Coach. There is no cost to hospice families. It complements other forms of grief support already provided, such as phone conversations with trained grief specialists, virtual support groups, a private Facebook group, newsletters and a library of online resources. HWR is a national leader in the provision of hospice care. Every year, its 15-person bereavement team provides grief support services for more than 6,000 hospice families as well as for the community at large.

Diane Snyder Cowan, Director of the Western Reserve Grief Services, learned about Grief Coach in December, and was impressed by the carefully crafted, thoughtful and personal texts delivered to people grieving suicide, cancer, overdose, stillbirth and many other deaths. 

"With COVID limitations, our in-person visits and support groups are temporarily suspended. It’s wonderful that these caring, well-timed personal messages can now go out to all of our families,” Snyder Cowan said. “They can add in their friends and family, too. Grief Coach gives our bereavement coordinators a way to ensure none of our family members have to grieve alone."