News

Escape Room to Demystify Death

Powers, Puzzles and Prescience is an Escape Room for Demystifying Death Week.

Undertaken by teams of 3-5 people, participants are challenged to unravel a super-hero themed mystery by finding clues and solving puzzles.

Along the way teams will encounter family dynamics, future care planning, caring responsibilities and aging in the 21^st century.

You’re invited to run the Escape Room in your own community.

Find out more here: Escape Room | Good Life, Good Death, Good Grief

Demystifying Death Week: Small Grants

A small grants fund has been set up to support people to participate in Demystifying Death Week, running 5-11 May 2025.

Demystifying Death Week is about giving people knowledge, skills and opportunities to plan and support each other through death, dying, loss and care.

We are making small grants of up to £250 available to support organisations and groups in Scotland to hold Demystifying Death Week events for their communities.

We’re seeking grant applications for events that take place in DD Week that meet one or more of the following aims:

• Help people to find ways of dealing with their own experiences of death, dying and bereavement;
• Help individuals and communities to support those who are experiencing difficult times associated with death, dying and bereavement;
• Support NHS and social care staff and volunteers to work compassionately and constructively with those who are dying or have been recently bereaved;
• Help people to make practical preparations for their death, for example Will, Power of Attorney and Advance Care Planning;
• Promote openness/discussion of death, dying and bereavement.

We recognise that approaches to this are likely to be varied, and we encourage creative and innovative ideas that are appropriate to local groups and communities.

Download the application form here. 

Download the Guide for Applicants here.

To apply, email your completed application form to samara@palliativecarescotland.org.uk by noon on Friday 21 March 2025. We will aim to inform applicants whether or not they have been successful by Tuesday 1 April 2025.

Image credit: Katt Yukawa on Unsplash

Demystifying Death Conference: Making Change Happen 

26 February 2025, Renfield Centre in Glasgow

Join us at this conference to explore how we can work together to demystify death and build more compassionate communities in Scotland. 

We welcome volunteers, community members, social care staff, nurses, doctors, funeral directors, death doulas, academics, policy makers, palliative care professionals, community development practitioners, teachers, service planners/managers and everyone else who is interested.

Check out the conference web page for more information and to book: Demystifying Death: Making Change Happen

Theory of Change for Bereavement Signposting

Good Life, Good Death, Good Grief and the Bereavement Charter Group have published a consensus vision and theory of change for improving signposting to bereavement information and support in Scotland.

They were developed by a collaboration of people working in the bereavement sector in Scotland, at ‘Talk to Action’ events held in January and March 2024. 

This ‘talk to action’ work followed on from the publication of the Bereavement Summit Report in June 2023, aiming to take one of the 10 summit recommendations and explore in details how it could be turned into reality.

What next?

From the outset it has been clear there is no additional budget for bereavement work, and the ‘talk to action’ work was led by an informal sector collaboration.  In the absence of dedicated resources to lead and co-ordinate building on what has been very useful work so far, the Bereavement Charter Group will do what it can within its very limited resources to create further opportunities for cross-sector collaboration on the issues raised within the Bereavement Summit Report.  The group is planning a face-to-face event to discuss various bereavement-related issues in Spring 2025, and more details will be available in due course.