We are pleased to invite you to the first European Grief Conference (EGC), taking place in Copenhagen, Denmark, September 21st – 23^rd, 2022. The conference is hosted by the Danish National Center for Grief in partnership with the Bereavement Network Europe (BNE), Aarhus University, and the Irish Hospice Foundation.

Her Royal Highness Crown Princess Mary of Denmark, who experienced the loss of her mother at a young age and who is patron of the Danish National Center for Grief, will open the European Grief Conference 2022 in Copenhagen with a recorded welcome address.

The VISION of the European Grief Conference – Copenhagen 2022 is to bring together European researchers, practitioners, and educators to learn, share and plan a culturally sensitive response to bereavement and grief across Europe.

The PURPOSE is to share knowledge and inspire collaboration in order to advance bereavement care in Europe. The conference will be structured around the four-tiered needs-based bereavement care model inspired by the public health model.

The title of the conference is ‘Bereavement and Grief in Europe – Emerging Perspectives & Collaborations’.

The vision of EGC is to bring together researchers, practitioners, and educators to learn, share and feel inspired to collaborate around the development and implementation of effective and culturally sensitive bereavement care responses across Europe. The conference will be structured around a four-tiered needs-based bereavement care model (see below), inspired by the evidence-based public health model as advanced by NICE (UK), Samar M Aoun, and others. The EGC partners credit the Irish Hospice Foundation for developing the three-tiered pyramid model of types of bereavement care, on which EGC has expanded.

Consequently, we hope to appeal to a broad audience, consisting of researchers, practitioners, and educators from various disciplines and practice sectors. 

The conference will have four overarching themes:

Level 0: Society:  Grief Literacy, Advocacy & Community (societal grief literacy & awareness).  Here public education about grief empowers individuals, communities, and decision-makers to increase the public’s understanding of bereavement and support needs of bereaved persons.

Level 1: Normal Grief: General Awareness & Support (general support & Information) Here the focus is on having access to information and adequate support, for example, available from family, social, and care networks.

Level 2: Bereavement Support: Prevention & Risk Factors (extra support)  A range of identifiable risk factors contribute to the fact that some bereaved people need additional organized support, for example in the form of peer-led groups, psycho-education in community settings.

Level 3: Complicated grief reactions: Diagnosis & Treatment (therapy support). Smaller proportions of bereaved people with additional stressors and disruptions to their grief will require specialist therapeutic responses.