“Violet is a place you can turn to for help in navigating the last stage of life,” explains The Violet Initiative CEO, Melissa Reader.
It aims to help the people around the person who is dying, to help them to become resilient and to live with fewer regrets about the death of the person they love, she explained.
Melissa is really excited right now because Violet has struck a partnership with The Australian Women’s Weekly.
“This partnership means Violet will be in front of the hundreds of thousands of women in the 50 – 75 year age bracket, the regular readers of the Women’s Weekly,” Melissa said.
This is because women in that age bracket are the frontline carers when someone in their family dies.
“And these are exactly the women who need the support that Violet can offer. We thank The Women’s Weekly for their support,” Melissa said.
Good Grief!’s experience is that this group is often overlooked and their advocacy in the hospital setting is devalued. We look forward to supporting Violet to change this.
Melissa Reader and I first met in August 2019 when she interviewed me about my book and Suharsha Kanathigoda, Director of Palliative Care ACT for the Canberra Writers Festival.
Our talk was fully booked and sold out a few weeks before, which shows people do want to talk about this most challenging subject – if they’re given the right opportunity and the right environment to express themselves.
Then her organisation was called LifeCircle but today it has had its exciting rebrand to Violet.
Watch Melissa Reader explain Violet’s role.
To read about grief in the elderly and predicting survival in elderly people leaving hospital: