Leadership Development Programs

Workplace Grief & Loss Education

Building grief-literate workplaces — coming September 2026

*Registrations of interest now open.*

Grief doesn’t wait for permission, and it doesn’t stay at home. Every year, hundreds of thousands of working-age Australians experience significant loss — and at any given time, around one in four people across an organisation may be carrying grief of some kind. They’re sitting in your meetings, answering your emails, serving your customers.

Yet most of us — leaders included — were never taught how to respond. We worry about saying the wrong thing, so we say nothing. We offer a card and a casserole, then expect business as usual. The grieving person learns to hide it, and the hidden cost shows up in wellbeing, connection, judgement, performance and turnover.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Grief literacy — knowing how to be with loss, in ourselves and others — is a business issue. And workplaces that build it create cultures where people feel genuinely seen and supported through the hardest moments of their lives.

Why I do this work

I know workplace grief from both sides.

For more than 25 years I led organisational change with senior leaders across the private and public sectors. I’ve seen how workplaces respond when life turns upside down for one of their people — the genuine care, and the awkward silence; the well-intentioned policies, and the gap between policy and what a grieving human actually needs.

Then it happened to me. In 2023, my husband Jeff — my partner of 33 years and father to our three daughters — was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. He died 15 months later. I stepped away from work for three years, and I am not the same person who left.

In moving toward my own grief, I trained as a grief educator and end-of-life doula, and I learned what no one had ever taught me: that grief is not a problem to be fixed but an experience to be witnessed. That time doesn’t make grief go away — but it doesn’t take love away either. That we can grow around our grief, and with the right support, it’s possible to grieve fully and live fully, often in the same moment.

I also learned how grief need to be acknowledged. When grief is witnessed, barriers come down and healing becomes possible. When it’s ignored, people grieve alone in plain sight. Connection is what helps us in our grief.

Part of my mission now is to help create a more grief-literate world — and the workplace, where so many of us spend so much of our lives, is where that change can reach the most people.

What’s coming in September 2026

In addition to being a certifed grief educator through David Kessler (grief.com) I am currently completing my accreditation as a Grief First Aid Facilitator. Grief First Aid is an Australian, evidence-informed training program that equips employees and leaders with practical, non-clinical skills to respond to loss with confidence, compassion and steady presence.

From September 2026, I’ll be bringing this learning to workplaces, alongside tailored grief and loss education drawing on my own lived and professional experience.

What participants learn:

  • What grief actually is — and the many losses beyond bereavement that trigger it, from diagnosis and divorce to redundancy and change
  • How to be present with a grieving colleague: what to say, what not to say, and why presence matters more than perfect words
  • Practical skills for acknowledging loss, holding boundaries, and knowing when and how to refer to professional support
  • How leaders can respond to loss in their teams — including return-to-work conversations and the months after the casseroles stop
  • Building consistent, caring practices that make grief support part of your culture, not a scramble in a crisis

Why it matters for your business:

Unattended grief is a psychosocial hazard — contributing to distraction, impaired judgement, stress and fatigue, with real implications for safety, wellbeing and your psychosocial risk obligations. A caring manager and supportive policies matter, but they are not enough, and EAPs rarely reach people in these moments. Grief First Aid complements programs like Mental Health First Aid: where MHFA focuses on mental health crises, Grief First Aid builds everyday, relational capability for being with loss.

Support that is good for your humans, smart for business.

Who this is for

  • Leaders and managers – who want to support their people through loss with confidence rather than avoidance
  • HR, People & Culture and wellbeing teams – building internal capability and psychologically safe cultures
  • Whole teams and organisations- especially those navigating significant change, or where a loss has touched the workplace
  • Organisations in safety-critical or high-care sectors where unattended grief carries heightened risk

Register your interest

Workplace Grief & Loss Education launches in September 2026, and I’m now taking registrations of interest for the first programs. If you’d like to explore what grief literacy could look like in your organisation — or simply have a conversation about a situation your workplace is navigating now please get in touch

Let’s Talk — book a free conversation 

Need support for one of your leaders before then? My 1:1 Transition and Coaching for impacted people is available now.

www.evolvingleaders.com.au