Soloss
Soloss is community care for loss and grief, offering peer-to-peer support and the co-creation of individual and neighbourhood healing rituals. It is a network of Edmontonians legitimizing and destigmatizing loss and grief. By bearing witness to loss in all its forms and giving grief a concrete form -- as paintings, objects, songs, dances, meditations and stories -- Soloss seeks to foster a deep sense of respect, connectedness, and meaning.
It was done in partnership with REACH Edmonton, InWithForward, and with support from the Stollery Charitable Foundation.
Building on the 2021 Soloss Experience
In 2021, in partnership with InWithForward and REACH Edmonton, we tested Soloss in the Belvedere and Balwin neighbourhoods. (Read more about the problem, the solution and what we tried on the Soloss 2021 page here.)
Prototyping evidence from 2021 showed that when we pause to recognize loss, and mark the moment, together, as fellow humans -- not as professionals or experts -- we can start to bridge class, race and religious divides and lay the groundwork for individual and collective healing. Everyone involved agreed that we needed to continue learning with this prototype.
The Background
Across 59 ethnographic stories of street-involved adults spending time in Edmonton’s inner city and south side between 2017-19, profound experiences of loss & grief were the common thread. Inadequately acknowledged losses, with little to no space for mourning, were often a catalyst to chronic crisis -- to repeated housing evictions, stalled addiction recovery, and relationship breakdown. And this was before the pandemic turned loss of life, work, rituals, freedom, and certainty into our collective realities.
The Problem it Addresses
Soloss addresses disenfranchised grief, recognizing that when loss & grief is minimized & sidelined, it can fuel depression, isolation, addiction, eviction, and further marginalization.
“Disenfranchised grief ... results when a person experiences a significant loss and the resultant grief is not openly acknowledged, socially validated or publicly mourned. In short, although the individual is experiencing a grief reaction, there is no social recognition that the person has a right to grieve or a claim for social sympathy or support.” - Kenneth Doka
The Focus for 2022
Testing Soloss as a form of employee assistance in partnership with the Bissell Centre and The Mustard Seed. During our initial prototype frontline social service workers emerged as a user group. Compassion fatigue, burnout, and vicarious trauma are urgent concerns for staff on the frontlines. We will test how Soloss might offer a different kind of support, rooted in cultural healing versus clinical problem solving.
Exploring new governance models to support innovative, community-led solutions. We will research and test alternative structures and decision-making processes that are more conducive to different logics, values and roles - ones that will preserve the transformative energy of Soloss and other community-led solutions. For this, we are partnering with Dr. Tim Barlott at the University of Alberta. He will help us develop a theoretical basis in our approach to scaling/governance, and help us to creatively explore questions around growth and scale for Soloss. Essentially, we plan to learn together about how to grow something innovative without squashing out the part that makes it innovative or special.
Growing Soloss to new neighbourhoods, and building more partnerships with local leaders & healing practitioners. Over 2022, we want to grow Soloss to one (or two) more neighbourhoods and continue to develop the infrastructure and tools to support an ever-increasing network of Losstenders. The second round of Soloss will be focused on a neighbourhood where the effects of unaddressed grief produce social tensions at the neighbourhood level (for example, Chinatown is under consideration).
Relation to RECOVER’s Wellbeing Framework
Underpinning Soloss is the belief that we, as fellow humans, are capable of responding to each other’s grief and connecting across lines of difference. We come from a plurality of rich traditions to help us journey through grief together; however, western culture has in many ways strayed from the traditions and rituals that nourish wellbeing as connection and interdependence.
Targeted Outcomes: Sharers and Losstenders experience greater sense of balance and connection to at least one of the six domains.
Tools/Levers: All the levers:
Frames & Narratives: Soloss brings disenfranchised grief and loss out into the open, shifting the storyline from one of isolation and shame to solidarity and healing.
Knowledge & Meanings: Soloss recognizes and draws on healing practices from across cultural, religious and disciplinary traditions.
Routines & Repertoires: Soloss creates healing artifacts and rituals at an individual and neighbourhood level.
Interactions & Environments: Soloss brokers horizontal, peer-to-peer relationships in people’s own natural environments.
Roles: Soloss values lived experiences of grief and loss, and offers flexible, paid work for individuals poorly served by the traditional labour market.
Incentives: Soloss works with social services and workplaces to reduce barriers to access and support widespread use.
You can learn more about Soloss and the experience with frontline social service workers by reading this. It is a Book of Moments that was created by InWithForward, the social design firm that co-led the work.