Social workers in palliative care settings face a unique set of challenges. These include but are not limited to: the constant cycle of meeting new patients who will soon pass, the anticipatory grief that comes with an impending loss, and the need to maintain a professional front while experiencing difficult emotions. Spaces to process these feelings, however, are lacking. That is why social work graduate students Tyler Schwartz, Nicole Mitchell, and Rennie Bimman, all from the 涩里番 School of Social Work, took it upon themselves to build a space where students could work through their experiences without judgement or academic pressure. In this interview, we detail how the group was formed and how it filled a long-neglected need.
Lexa Frail (LF): So first, I'd like you to introduce yourself.听听
Nicole Mitchell (NM): My name is Nicole Mitchell, and I'm an academic associate and PhD candidate at the 涩里番 School of Social Work. As an academic associate, I am the field coordinator and student support coordinator for 涩里番鈥檚 Master of Social Work Qualifying Year (MSWQY) and Master of Social Work programs. I am also a course lecturer, and I co-facilitate the MSWQY workshops for the MSWQY students.听
Tyler Schwartz (TS): My name is Tyler Schwartz. I'm a student at 涩里番. I just completed my qualifying year of social work, and I'll be starting my Master of Social Work in September.听
Rennie Bimman (RB): I'm Rennie Bimman. I am a social worker, and a doctoral student at the School of Social Work at 涩里番. My clinical practice and research work has always focused on grief, loss, and palliative care, and my doctoral research is about addressing the grief of parents and grandparents experiencing perinatal loss. I was also the facilitator for the peer group that we're here to talk about today.听
LF: Can you tell us about your peer support group?听
NM: I facilitate weekly integrative seminars with MSWQY students, where they have the opportunity to bring cases and discuss any issues that might be happening in the field. Pretty early in the semester, Tyler was sharing her experience as a social work student at Mount Sinai Hospital, which serves many people dealing with palliative care issues. While she was sharing, another student picked up on the intense feelings that she was experiencing in working with death and dying and asked whether there was something that could be offered to students who are doing their placements working with palliative care patients. I quickly reached out to Rennie to see if something could be done not just for Tyler, but other students who are also doing field placements in settings that involve heavy emotions related to death, dying, palliative care, and end of life. Thankfully, Rennie took up the mantle.听
TS: I was overwhelmed by all the emotions during my first week in my internship, and those feelings just exploded out of me. I could see my cohort鈥檚 faces鈥攖hey were so empathetic, but I recognized that not everyone is prepared to have conversations about death. This project created a new space where there was no academic pressure, where I could be more vulnerable and honest about what I was experiencing. I appreciate the person in my cohort who spoke up for me, because I didn't even realize what I needed in that moment. So, this project came at a perfect time.听
RB: When I heard about this need for support, the opportunity excited me, because 颈迟鈥檚 valuable and rare to have spaces as a learner where you can talk about your work without being evaluated. I also think that while working with grief and loss and in palliative care can be very meaningful, it can also be very difficult, and 颈迟鈥檚 also something that can be hard for people who 补谤别苍鈥檛 directly in it to understand. So, creating spaces to unpack those emotions is crucial. I was happy to have the chance to be part of that and I was glad to hear that this came directly from students who were identifying a need for this.听
I strongly believe that social workers, wherever they work, will encounter grief and loss because it's a very human experience. So, we opened it to any MSWQY students working in any setting. Folks could show up to any session even if they hadn't participated before. Every session started with an icebreaker. I would always ask everyone to say their name, their internship environment鈥�if they were comfortable sharing that鈥攁nd something that had made them smile that day. Our intention was to open the space with something grounding and heartening before diving into the core focus of the group. Then, we would cover ground rules, including confidentiality, and I would also emphasize to the students that this was not a space where they were being evaluated. I would then gauge everyon别鈥檚 energy levels by asking them each to hold up their fingers on Zoom on a scale from one to five, giving the participants a sense of how everybody's day had been and what they were bringing into this space. That then helped open the floor for the group to share what was most pressing on their minds. Often, discussion might flow from reflections like 鈥�I'm at a one out of five energy-wise today because this happened at my placement,鈥� or 鈥�this was something that really came up for me that I wanted to share with the group.鈥� The themes we covered were wide-ranging as a result.听
Uniquely, it wasn't a space where we were working on training or case consultation. We were talking directly about the emotional impact of patients and cases that folks were working with, which there isn't often space for. There were many discussions about how interfacing with grief and loss all the time really brings to the forefront our own mortality and what it's like to deal with that. We spoke about the real complexities of how to do this work and then return to your personal life, and what it's like to talk to other people about this. Doing that within a space where everyone in the room shared similar feelings was special. We would always close off with another little signal of everyone's energy levels at the end to get a sense of how the group session had landed with people, and then we would do a closing icebreaker. It's important to leave on a lighter note, especially after such heavy discussion. I would ask everybody to share something that would make them smile before their day ended, to take a break from the emotions we had just sat with.听
NM: Hitting the emotional aspects of this work is super important because it's such a complex environment to work in. I feel like the groups helped those students to feel less isolated and encouraged healthy ways of managing their emotions around grief and loss. It helped them to feel more supported knowing that they had a safe environment to be able to do this.听
LF: What are some under-discussed aspects of working with grief?听
RB: For me, clinician grief is completely ignored. We live in a very grief-denying society. Within that, folks who provide bereavement support experience very real grief and loss ourselves, but rarely, if ever, is there space to talk about that. Then, as social workers, no matter what settings we're in, we often end up acting in a support capacity for our teammates. But where are the spaces for social workers to explore what they are holding and carrying? In some ways, it makes sense why this happens. We're supposed to be healthcare providers. We're supposed to provide support as opposed to receiving it. But it's also normal to be a human being impacted by the work that we do. And that impact is important. We bring ourselves into this work, and so we also need support, and that creates a very real tension.听
NM: I agree. 奥别鈥檙别 not robots. It's normal for us to feel sadness and helplessness, especially around death and dying. Where do you process your anticipatory grief and emotional attachment to clients? Because when you're in your placement or in the field, you're expected to be professional. But the sadness, the emotional burden, and the anticipatory grief that you're constantly dealing with touches you. It hurts you.听
TS: I also want to mention the impact of cumulative grief. 罢丑别谤别鈥檚 a constant turnover of restarting: the emotional toll of starting anew and saying goodbye all at the same time. Ther别鈥檚 this professional expectation of putting on a face and being there for what your client needs, but you need to acknowledge what you need as well. For me, a lot of that processing happened outside of work. It would hit me at different times, maybe on my way home from work or late at night watching TV. Even if 测辞耻鈥檙别 not grieving a loved one, you still process that grief. It accumulates throughout your work, and I 诲辞苍鈥檛 think 迟丑补迟鈥檚 discussed enough. It's kind of like you're on a roller coaster and you're just going, going, going鈥�you have to acknowledge when you need to take a step back. This grief support group is what helped me take that step back and acknowledge those aspects of grief.听
In terms of reflection, grief reminds us that 飞别鈥檙别 not immortal. Intellectually, we know this, but emotionally, it feels very different when 测辞耻鈥檙别 witnessing death up close. So, when dealing with grief, those thoughts of 鈥渨hat if this happens to me or my family鈥� are transferred to you, and I 诲辞苍鈥檛 think 迟丑补迟鈥檚 discussed enough.听
LF: Overall, what is your biggest takeaway from this project?听
NM: For me, it's just that it's really needed. I just want to continue to foster this. It gets to the heart of who we are as social workers and as human beings and what we should be doing to support students working in this area of practice. I definitely think that it should continue for any social work student who is doing a field placement in a palliative care or related setting. You can't underestimate the impact that working in these environments has on our students. This experience shed a lot of light on that, and also on how we can mobilize and organize to have support like this not just for MSWQY students, but for students in the 产补肠丑别濒辞谤鈥檚 and master鈥檚 programs as well.听听
TS: My biggest takeaway was realizing how much I needed this. Working in palliative care was probably one of the most vulnerable times in my life. I don't think I've ever cried that much before. But this group created an environment where I didn't feel like I had to hide that vulnerability and hold everything together all the time. It's a crucial part of working in these types of fields. While it wasn't mandatory, it was just what I needed. So, 滨鈥檓 thankful to Rennie and Nicole for providing that space.听
RB: For me, I continue to be so impressed and inspired by how this all came from the initiative of students like Tyler. We've spoken a lot about how there's a culture within our world at large, especially within healthcare, of not talking about grief. Within social work, there can also be a culture of not allowing or permitting ourselves to recognize our needs. It can sometimes take a very long time in this field for us to realize the heaviness in it. To have these students come into the first parts of their work in this field, recognize that need, and then take the initiative to do something about it鈥�as Tyler said, it wasn't mandatory, but her cohort showed up and wanted to create that and support each other鈥�it made me feel hopeful for a future in social work and also in palliative care where clinicians are recognizing their own needs and also have the skills to support not only themselves, but each other. Seeing these students offering this space, connection, and understanding to each other was the biggest standout for me.听
The student grief support group was held for the first time in the Winter semester of 2026. Currently, the group is internal to the 涩里番 School of Social Work and plans to continue to support social work students in all field placements. For more information, contact Rennie Bimman at听rennie.bimman [at] mcgill.ca听and Nicole Mitchell at nicole.mitchell2 [at] mcgill.ca.