Through our work within mental health, we have been embedding open conversations about bereavement and loss within our sessions and projects. Natasha Steer co-founded The Brown Bread Collective with death doula Candy Penfold to develop this even further.

Natasha runs regular Bereavement and Loss training for the Medway Better Champions programme through Medway Council and can offer bespoke training for organisations around how to have more conversations around bereavement, loss and grief. Please contact her through the contact page.

‘Grief Postcards’, was a new Creatabot pilot project in Medway funded by Better Medway Champions in Winter 2023. The postcards provided you with the opportunity to say some last words to people you have loved and lost. You sent the postcards off, and were scanned onto a digital shrine for people who have died, creating an archive of memories and words we wish someone could hear. 

The ‘I need you to know…’ postcards provided a word prompt to write something you wish you could have said to someone before they died. The white front postcards provided the opportunity to be creative and draw and/or write feelings about the person who has died, or words you wish you could have said.

Both designs were placed in Chatham Library and Rochester Library.

The postcards were been created for those who feel out of place attending a funeral, or for those who have to remain anonymous in their grief. Additionally, there were many during the Covid-19 pandemic who were unable to say goodbye to loved ones. Maybe someone was never aware of the impact they had on us before they died, and we feel we have words to say remaining. Grief postcards gave people the chance to speak those words.

This pilot project was funded by Better Medway Champions.