Grief Café - What should I do if it is too hard to grieve?

💡 What can you expect from this session?

Grief can feel like an invisible weight — too heavy to carry, too complex to name. This workshop invites you into a safe and compassionate space to explore why grieving can feel so hard, especially when the world expects us to "move on". Through gentle guidance, relatable stories, and meaningful interaction, you’ll discover ways to honor your pain and the pain of others, soften judgment, and find moments of peace amid sorrow. This workshop aims to offer you hope, healing, and permission to feel.

🟢 Who should join?

This session is open to all.

✨ Meet the facilitators

Ms Ooi Yinn Shan

Yinn Shan is a Senior Medical Social Worker and Counsellor with the grief and bereavement team at Assisi Hospice. She is a registered social worker (SASW), registered nurse (SNB), and a provisional registered counsellor with the Singapore Association for Counselling (SAC).

With over 17 years of healthcare experience, she has extensive experience supporting individuals and families through grief, including traumatic bereavement. Her current focus is on counselling work that integrates trauma-informed care, mindfulness, and cultural sensitivity. Yinn Shan pays close attention to how unresolved past experiences, as well as cultural and family dynamics, influence the grieving process.

To raise awareness and deepen understanding of grief, Yinn Shan shares insights through public talks, professional training sessions, and other initiatives to enhance support for those experiencing loss.

Ms Mia Lu

Mia is currently a Counsellor at Assisi Hospice and a Provisional Clinical Member with the Singapore Association for Counselling (SAC). Prior to joining Assisi, she served as a freelance Resident Counsellor with It All Starts Hear (IASH.sg).

Before stepping into the counselling profession, Mia spent over a decade in the higher education sector. Her decision to make a career transition was inspired by a deep and enduring desire to support individuals through life’s most vulnerable moments. She is especially drawn to grief and bereavement counselling, where she feels privileged to walk alongside clients navigating loss—offering presence, understanding, and a safe space for emotional expression.

Mia believes in the quiet strength of being with someone in their pain, and that healing often begins when we feel seen and heard. Her work is grounded in compassion, respect, and the belief that even in the midst of sorrow, there can be connection, meaning, and hope.

This activity is organised as part of Singapore Hospice Council's Live Well. Leave Well. Festival 2025. Click here to see more programme highlights.

About Singapore Hospice Council

Singapore Hospice Council (SHC) is a registered charity and an umbrella body representing organisations that actively provide hospice and palliative care in Singapore.

SHC is committed to improving the lives of patients with serious illnesses and giving support to the loved ones of these patients. It aims to coordinate and promote hospice and palliative care in Singapore; to support the training of doctors, nurses, allied-health workers, caregivers, and volunteers; to improve on the quality of palliative care; and to raise public awareness. It acts as the voice of hospice and palliative care within Singapore and internationally.

For enquiries, email us at info@singaporehospice.org.sg