What a grief therapist actually does for an employer after a death, and what she would rather do before one.
A care team had been supporting a young person around the clock, and the staff were exhausted. Then the young person died, suddenly, and once grief was added to the exhaustion, many of the team felt unable to remain in work.
That is how Karen Lafferty describes the team she was brought in to support. Whether an organisation has a plan for that moment or not, the cost of handling it badly has been measured. In a ComRes survey for the National Council for Palliative Care in 2014, 56% of people said they would consider leaving their job if their employer did not provide proper support when someone close to them died.
Karen is a grief therapist with more than fifteen years of clinical experience and the Director of Continuum Training & Consultancy Ltd., which offers one-to-one counselling, clinical supervision, workplace training and grief consultancy online across the UK. She was the person the organisation called. What she did first is the part she’s clearest about.
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The First Thing She Does
“When I work with businesses following a bereavement, the first thing I do is listen,” Karen says. “I want to understand who the person was that died, the role they played, who they were in the bigger picture of the organisation, and understand the relationships they had with their colleagues.”
Only then does a plan take shape. “In some instances, this will be onsite support, either as groups or 1:1,” she says. “In other cases, this has been accessing online appointments that people can tap into when they want to.” The sessions themselves stay close to the present: how people are feeling in this moment, and how they can support themselves moving forwards.
Not every call comes after a death. “Some employers bring me in before a death occurs, in order that they can have a plan and appropriate policies in place to help them be prepared ahead of such events,” she says. That is the work she’d like more of, and she gives the reason plainly.
“It’s important people aren’t left to make big decisions in the aftermath of a sudden or unexpected death occurring.”
Karen Lafferty, Director, Continuum Training & Consultancy Ltd.
The care team had no such plan when she arrived. What happened next is the reason it now has one.
What Happened With the Team
“We came together as a group to provide some space for debriefing, and in this we talked about how people were looking after themselves,” Karen says. Every member of staff was also offered an optional one-to-one session for anything specific they wanted to voice. Half of the team took it up.
“As a result of this support, all staff members returned to work and talked about the importance of recognising the human cost of caring for others,” she says. The organisation went further than one team. Support of this kind is now offered there as standard practice whenever a traumatic incident occurs.
Karen has a word for what that support does inside an organisation, and for what its absence does. She learned it running services, not in private practice.
The Ripples
Alongside Continuum, Karen has led bereavement services and counselling teams inside organisations. Asked what building a service teaches that one-to-one work alone would not, she answers with a single image.
“The biggest learning for me has been the ripples that can occur within services when a death occurs, both positive and negative,” she says. “Teams who have access to good bereavement support and who have clear policies to lean on often continue to function well, and that feeling of being supported and listened to then ripples out across the organisation. People help each other. Communities pull together.”
The reverse is also true. “When there is an absence of appropriate support, this too ripples out across the team. People become disenfranchised. Sadly it’s difficult to come back from situations that are poorly handled.”
If the ripples are that predictable, the obvious question is why so few organisations, and so few people, prepare for them. Karen’s answer starts with what grief is.
Why Support Arrives Too Late
“Grief is a natural, normal response to loss but all too often we try to avoid it in the hope that it may not show up in our lives. But to love, is to grieve.”
Karen, Director, Continuum Training & Consultancy Ltd.
“From my own lived experience of grief, along with my clinical experience as a grief therapist for over 15 years, I believe people are afraid that if they talk about grief and prepare for it, then they are in some way welcoming it,” she says. “As a result, most people bury their head in the sand, and hope that it doesn’t affect them. Sadly we know we’ll all experience loss. It’s one of the few human experiences that will touch all of us, at some stage in our life.”
The avoidance she describes is close to universal. Research published by Sue Ryder in May 2026 found that three in five UK adults admit to avoiding conversations about death and end-of-life wishes. Karen’s own lived experience of what that silence does to a person began when she was eleven.
Eleven
“As an 11 year old child, my dad died, which was sudden and unexpected,” Karen says. “He had a fatal cardiac event and didn’t wake up from his sleep. At 11, I had experienced the deaths of my grandparents, but had no real template for grief. I’m not sure I really could comprehend the permanence of it.”
“At that time, in the mid 90’s, none of the adults around me talked about what grief is, or how to make sense of it. All of the focus was on my mum. All I knew is that I was really sad, and so was everyone else.”
“What was missing was access to age appropriate information, a safe space to ask the many questions my 11 year old mind was holding, and reassurance that how I was feeling was very, very normal.”
Karen, Director, Continuum Training & Consultancy Ltd.
She trained as a counsellor at the University of Strathclyde and is an NCPS accredited counsellor. She later completed an MSc in Studies of Mindfulness at the University of Aberdeen and is a Mindfulness Association certified mindfulness teacher, which is why mindfulness runs through Continuum’s workshops and retreats alongside the counselling. The missing conversation of her childhood is also, in her telling, part of why she started a podcast.
Grief Unedited
“I had a few friends who all had their first experience of loss as an adult, and they talked of feeling that there weren’t any real or honest conversations that mirrored their experience,” Karen says. “So, Grief Unedited was born as a space to have real, honest and sometimes raw conversations about grief and loss.”
Season one gave that space to people talking about different types and circumstances of loss. In season two she has invited professionals from across the grief and loss sector to talk about what their years in it have taught them. The podcast is on Apple, Amazon Music, Spotify and YouTube, and this year it received a Highly Commended award at the inaugural Scottish Podcast Awards. “I’m genuinely delighted as we were up against some amazingly polished podcasts with sponsors and production teams,” she wrote afterwards. “Without my amazing guests who have given their time and wisdom so generously, there wouldn’t be a podcast, so this is for you.”
She has used the same platform to argue for the thing she didn’t have at eleven. When grief and bereavement became a mandatory part of the curriculum in state-funded schools in England and Wales this month, she wrote: “As a proud Scot, I’m hopeful that our Scottish Government will follow this lead.”
Where Karen Is Now
Karen runs Continuum Training & Consultancy Ltd. as its Director, and serves as a Trustee of Cruse Scotland Bereavement Support. Alongside the counselling and supervision, Continuum runs Grief Retreats, a day of mindfulness, movement and a sound bath, which run throughout the year. Over the coming year, her main focus is on helping workplaces navigate grief, supporting teams both during difficult losses and in preparing for them. Alongside this work, she hopes to continue growing the audience for Grief Unedited.
The writer she returns to is Mary-Frances O’Connor. “She writes so beautifully about loss and grief from a scientific perspective,” Karen says. “Her books The Grieving Body, and The Grieving Brain are amongst my most recommended!”
Sitting with people in the depths of grief has a cost, and she is clear about how she pays it. “To be able to sit with people who are in the depths of grief, you need good personal boundaries. Lots of time outdoors, and shared meals with loved ones are my favourite ways to decompress.”
Asked what is next, she doesn’t reach for anything new. “My mission is simple, to continue to provide exceptional bereavement support to individuals and organisations when they need it most.”
Five Reflections from Karen
Listen before you plan. Who was the person who died, what role did they play, and what were their relationships with colleagues? The plan comes from the answers.
Prepare before it happens. Talking about grief is not the same as welcoming it, and nobody should be making big decisions in the days after a sudden death.
Watch the ripples. Support that’s felt travels outwards across an organisation. So does its absence, and that is hard to come back from.
Count the human cost of caring. People who look after others need looking after too, especially when a loss lands on top of exhaustion.
Keep your own boundaries. Time outdoors and shared meals with people you love are what make it possible to keep sitting with grief.
From the Diary of Karen Lafferty
Karen Lafferty is a Glasgow-based grief therapist and the Director of Continuum Training & Consultancy Ltd.
| Role | Director, Continuum Training & Consultancy Ltd.; Trustee, Cruse Scotland Bereavement Support |
| Based in | Glasgow |
| Also with | Grief Unedited, podcast host |
“Specialist Support for Grief, Loss and Life Transitions.”
Editor’s Note
We chose Karen Lafferty because her answers describe what bereavement support looks like when it is done properly, in the order it happens: listening first, a plan second, and a team that comes back to work. She cites the figures for what silence costs, and she has lived the version where nobody talked. The podcast she started and the award it won are evidence that the conversations she says are missing find an audience when someone hosts them. What convinced the editors is that the work and the argument are the same thing, and that she does not claim more for either than she has seen.
Executives Diary, Editorial
