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Grief Care Referral Pathway

When a client's grief needs expand alongside talk therapy, therapists need a non-clinical partner they can trust to stay in scope, complement their work, and refer back when clinical care is needed.

Non-clinical grief care and well-being coaching that works alongside therapy rather than in place of it. This page is written to sit in your referral file. Download a PDF version here.

Jennifer Janelle, MA, NBC-HWC, ERYT

Grief Tender · Death Doula · Board Certified Health and Well-being Coach · InterSpiritual Companion 

 

When a referral fits

  • The client is ready to act on insight. Therapy has surfaced what needs to change and the client wants a guide while they build it into daily life: structure, routine, ritual, boundaries, a practical self-care toolbox.

  • Grief continues past active treatment. The client no longer needs weekly clinical care but is not finished grieving and wants ongoing companionship.

  • Grief needs more hours than the therapy hour holds. Concurrent support between sessions, without duplicating your work.

  • Anticipatory grief and end-of-life. A client facing their own death or accompanying someone who is dying: presence, planning, ritual and ceremony, legacy projects, support for the surrounding family.

  • Losses that often go unwitnessed. Pet loss, divorce, estrangement, job loss, loss of a faith community, loss of an imagined future, miscarriage and stillbirth, collective and ecological grief.

  • The client wants somatic and contemplative practice. Meditation, breath, gentle movement, sound, yoga nidra, nervous system support.

 

Scope

This is not therapy. I do not diagnose, treat, or provide mental health care, and I do not take the place of a clinical provider. I hold non-clinical, presence-based support and coaching.

I will contact you or direct the client back to clinical care when I see active suicidality or self-harm risk, symptoms that warrant clinical assessment, trauma that needs clinical processing, substance use that needs treatment, or anything else outside my scope. If a client is not currently in therapy and needs it, I say so and help them find it.

 

How to refer

  1. Mention it in session. Describe it as grief companionship and coaching that runs alongside our work, not a replacement for it. Clients hear the difference when it comes from you.

  2. Hand over this page or the website. The client books a free 30 minute connection call directly at the link below. No paperwork or intake form is needed from you.

  3. Connection call. We discuss what they are carrying, what they want, and whether I am the right fit. If I am not, I say so and point them elsewhere.

  4. First session within one to two weeks. All sessions are held online, so a client can be supported wherever they are and wherever they travel. Single sessions and care plans are both available; pricing is on the website.

If you would rather make a warm introduction yourself, email me the client's first name and what you think would help, and I will follow up with them directly.

 

Coordination

With the client's written authorization, I am glad to confirm that they connected, note themes that may be useful to your work, and flag anything that belongs in your room. Without authorization I share nothing, including whether the person contacted me.

What I will not do: interpret your clinical work to the client, offer a second opinion on treatment, or recommend that they change or end therapy. My default position is that our work is additive.

 

Free resources

Guided meditations, free to share with clients between sessions or to use yourself:

For you. I also work directly with therapists and care providers around cumulative grief, vicarious trauma, compassion fatigue, and sustaining this work over time. Details at jenniferjanelle.com/healers.

 

Contact

I am seeking other compassionate care providers to build a full-spectrum care team. I would welcome knowing what an ideal referral to you looks like so I can send people your way as well.

Jennifer Janelle Meditation, mindfulness, yoga, well-being, Austin

“We’re all just walking each other home.” 

Ram Dass

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