Duration
One off event on 10th November 2016
Project staff
Overview
Seventeen members of the public came together with researchers during the early evening on 10th November 2016 in the centre of Nottingham.
The session began with short presentations about research. Dr Caswell spoke about her interest in the notion that dying people need to be accompanied in order to experience a good death. She talked about findings from her pilot project which carried out some preliminary investigations into people’s perspectives on dying alone, and her plans for continuing this work.
Dr Almack then spoke about her research exploring end of life experiences for people in the LGBT community, and the ways in which the findings are being disseminated. She then went on to talk about her interests in the family and the ways in which death and dying are experienced and managed amongst families. The main part of the evening followed. Everyone introduced themselves and spoke briefly about what had interested them in coming along to this event.
We then broke into small groups for further discussions. Talk flowed on a wide range of topics which all had one thing in common – they were about dying and death. Bereavement, end of life care, the need to talk more about death, funerals, wills, hospices and hospitals were just some of the subjects raised.
Evaluation of the session was positive, highlighting the interesting conversations, the wish that it could have been a longer session and interest in the research that Drs Almack and Caswell spoke about.
Aims
The event had two aims:
1) To inform members of the public about our research related to opening up conversations about death and dying
2) To offer a comfortable and safe space in which people can discuss issues around death and dying