Navigating the Wilderness exists to expand our collective understanding of grief. 

By expanding our understanding of how grief moves through people’s lives and circumstances, we equip organisations and communities to navigate grief effectively.  

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  • A digitally illustrated scene of a residential area overgrown with trees, with labels pointing to different parts: 'education' near a small house with a cone-shaped roof, 'health care' near a small billboard, and 'deprivation' pointing to a fence and wall at the front. In the background, tall buildings are visible under a cloudy sky.

  • An illustrated urban scene with a red brick building with large windows and a person standing outside. The scene features labels pointing to various areas of the background with trees and buildings, including 'social division,' 'public services,' and 'closures'.

  • A colorful illustration of a park with people, trees, and buildings in the background. Labels indicate 'employment', 'companions', and 'early years'.

  • A stylized illustration of a backyard with trees, shrubs, and houses, annotated with labels for 'spaces to play,' 'housing,' and 'public safety,' featuring a person with a backpack walking on a path.

  • A drawing showing a community scene with labels highlighting elements: environment with trees and buildings in the background, transport with a person standing near a bus or tram in the foreground, and carers with a person sitting on the ground near the vehicle.

Why do we need to expand our understanding of grief?

Grief shapes all the ways we live, work and share space together. It is present in our home and families, our education settings, our workplaces, our health, and our communities.

At Navigating the Wilderness, we advocate for a systemic understanding of grief, which frames grief as a public health and equity issue.

By expanding our collective understanding of grief, we can create the conditions to understand how grief impacts us.

When we understand the impact, we can expand our capacities to meet grief in our own context with confidence, compassion and care.

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Who We Work With

We collaborate with organisations and communities seeking clearer insight into how grief affects their people, places and decision making.

Together, we build understandings that informs practice, strengthens relationships and enhances how we collectively respond to grief.

  • We support organisations to understand how grief affects staff, culture and decision-making.
    Our work includes:

    • Policy and practice review

    • Workplace grief audits

    • Grief literacy training

    • Team workshops and reflective exercises

    • Consultancy for HR and OD teams

    • Guidance after a death in the workplace

    • Research into grief within specific organisational contexts

    • Participatory methods for linking grief and systems change

    • Grief-informed supervision

  • We help teams understand how grief is present in the communities they work with and how to respond effectively.
    Our support includes:

    • Designing and delivering grief-engaged programmes

    • Workshops and facilitated sessions

    • Advisory roles for community projects and cultural spaces

    • Developing grief-literate approaches for volunteers and facilitators

    • Lived experience and community-led research

    • Coproduction and community development methods

    • Support for frontline customer-facing teams to respond with compassion

  • We work with education settings to build grief-literate environments for staff and students.


    Our services include:

    • Inset day training and staff development

    • Consultancy after a death in an education or youth setting

    • Media and communication guidance

    • Support with pastoral approaches and whole-school environments

    • Training for governors, safeguarding leads and support staff

    • Reflective supervision and grief coaching for staff


      (We work with educators and staff — not directly with children or young people.)

  • We support health and care teams to understand grief as part of everyday practice.
    Our work includes:

    • Coproduced research on the clinical and social impacts of grief

    • Insight for social prescribing and community health roles

    • Training for frontline practitioners and carers

    • Consultancy for service design and delivery

    • Grief literacy as part of public health approaches

    • Support for teams navigating loss, change and complexity

  • We work with organisations shaping strategy, funding and policy to bring grief literacy into decision making.
    Our services include:

    • Systems-focused consultancy

    • Wellbeing and reflective support for grantees

    • Grief-informed supervision for funded partners

    • Advisory roles on programme design and engagement

    • Longer-term grief strategy development

    • Coproduced approaches to understanding community impact

  • We help media professionals represent grief responsibly and support people who share their stories.
    Our work includes:

    • Guidance on narrative framing and representation of grief

    • On-site or remote support for interviewees and contributors

    • Aftercare systems for people sharing lived experience

    • Reflective supervision for journalists working with grief stories

    • Training in grief literacy and equitable reporting

    • Support for journalism students and emerging storytellers

Partners, Peers and Publications