Emotional support for the grief-stricken after sudden loss

The purpose of the project is to extend the proven successful ACCESS peer support model to everyone coping with all types of sudden loss beyond air disasters. For 19 years, ACCESS has effectively provided peer bereavement support to thousands grieving after air disasters by pairing them with grief mentors who experienced a similar loss years earlier. ACCESS’ unprecedented experience demonstrates that this model helps the grief stricken heal and restore resiliency to productively resume their forever changed lives. This peer support minimizes the risk of PTSD, long term depression, isolation, and family, social and occupational difficulties. There is ample documentation in the field of mental health that sharing feelings of loss with others who have suffered similarly, provides immeasurable comfort and support, and facilitates the recovery process. Many sources, such as the “Harvard Review of Psychiatry,” validate the importance of such a free and easily accessible recovery program.

There is an unmet need by everyone grieving after sudden loss for free and easily accessible nonjudgmental emotional support from another who experienced a similar loss years earlier. There are over 1 million sudden deaths in the US each year, leaving more than 5 million individuals grieving in the aftermath. Abundant literature demonstrates that an unmet need for adequate emotional support can lead to long-term depression and PTSD manifesting as suicide, addiction and disruption of families and communities. ACCESS applies this model of peer support successfully to help thousands grieving in the wake of air disasters regain the strength and resiliency to productively resume their forever changed lives. The model is unique in matching the grief stricken with mentors who themselves have survived a similar loss years earlier. It is free and unconstrained by geography because the support is provided remotely. The goal is a nationwide bank of trained grief mentors who have lost loved ones in years past from diverse causesfor example, a woman who loses a daughter in a car accident can be matched with another who has survived the loss of her own daughter in a car accident in the past.

Vision

Expand ACCESS grief model to all types of sudden loss

Scale proven ACCESS peer grief support model to facilitate the recovery of the 57 million individuals who are left grief-stricken each year following all types of sudden loss in the US. Create national database of trained grief mentors who have survived the sudden loss of a loved one years earlier to pair with the grief-stricken according to the relationship lost and type of death.

Aircraft Casualty Emotional Support Services (ACCESS)