Resources for executors and Estate Administrators
Resources for executors and Estate Administrators
A little grief support is a good thing. HelpTexts is a service that through periodic texts, channels your grief. Another perspective, a space to look at your loss, personalized resources, and companion technology for a personal journey, make up HelpTexts.
Executorium Publisher, George Compton discusses this grief support technology with HelpTexts Clinical Lead Melissa Lunardini. “What can a text do?” asks Compton.
Everyone’s grief is different. Executorium seeks to create awareness of any technology or path to support that may help lift the burden of loss.
This episode of Executorium’s Estate Talks was broadcast on Wednesday, March 13, 2024.
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The following transcript has been edited for readability.
EX: Hello welcome to Estate Talks. Today we discuss HelpTexts – a tool to help with grief. We have Melissa Lunardini of HelpTexts to explain.
Melissa, grief is inevitable, and when it’s here you can’t shortcut it, you can’t outrun it, it how can a text help?
ML: It’s a great question. I think that grief is experienced differently by everyone, and therefore there’s no one right or wrong way to manage and cope with grief. What we have found over the years is that there are a portion of people who do really well in one-on-one counseling and group counseling, they do well with support from family members and friends, and they also do support within their community. But there is a small percentage of people, or a fairly large percentage of people actually, that would prefer to receive support via text message.
So what this does is offer a new opportunity for people to receive care in a very innovative way that can help them through their grief journey. We know that about 60% of the population do well with a little grief education, gentle tips and reminders, and some somebody, or some tool to validate their grief experience, and that’s exactly what HelpTexts will do.
EX: Loss is so personal. Is HelpTexts just a chatbot or is it AI? How does it actually work in in real time, what can I expect?
ML: Yes. Yes. You’re right. Loss is very personal and unique to everyone. The way that our text program works (HelpTexts) – you’re allowed to give us as much information as you would like about your person. We do ask questions about your relationship, the age that you were, the age that you are, or the age of the person who died, the cause of death, the time since death, any anniversaries or holidays or important dates that are meaningful to you as a griver. And what we’re able to do then is to curate really specific texts tailored to your needs and that’s what helps this feel like a very personal interaction. I have an example of a text that I can share with you, that that might help explain what the experience is like.
The texts are really designed to be one-way. Meaning, that you sit back as the griever and just receive the support from us. If you are an executor or a trustee, you might have additional responsibilities, opposed to other people who are just grieving a loss.
So this is an example of a text that we might send to an executor or a trustee who is also grieving a significant loss in their life…
Hi Michael. As Graham’s executor or trustee you may get a lot of do this or do that advice which can be really overwhelming. Remember that almost nothing after death is urgent. When feelings of urgency do come up try the 3X3 test.
So name three things that you need to take care of right away and then ask yourself these questions:
1. Must it happen today?
2. What happens if I don’t do it?
3. Can someone else help me with it?
These questions can help you prioritize what to do next. As you can see this is a very helpful text to receive if you’re feeling bogged down and overwhelmed by your responsibilities. You can really just pause and be like okay, let me run all of my responsibilities through this 3×3 test.
EX: Melissa is the head of clinical at HelpTexts so we’re especially happy to have her here on EstateTalks.
Melissa, for someone new to loss, could you describe the grief support landscape? You find yourself in this situation and, Now what?
ML: I think most people first prefer to lean on their family and friends for support. Then they might start to feel like their grief is a little too much for their family and friends to to carry for them, and so they might then look to online and books and reading materials. So, more of the self-help type stuff. So they might look to listen to podcasts. They might gain reading materials just to educate themselves on the grief process and to feel normal in what they’re experiencing. They might also go to social media for example. What we know is that most people who experience a painful loss will do well within the first year or two being bereaved with just support from their family members and friends, and some education, and some coping strategies.
There are some people though that do need a little bit more support or feel like they need more support so then they might then go into their community and get peer-based counseling. So, really seeking out support from people who’ve had shared life experiences similar to their own. That can be through a support group, through one-on-one counseling, through community-based events.
And then there’s a small percentage of people who are really struggling because maybe they have other heavy life challenges that are also complicating their grief, and or maybe they just have a very traumatic grief story and experience. Those people may benefit mostly from therapeutic support – so we talking about one-on-one therapy with a trained counselor who specializes in grief and loss.
So, those are all the types of support. Texting can be utilized actually with every type of loss – in conjunction with it or it can be used as a standalone grief support option.
EX: I thank you for that. So many people are often in “a cloud” for lack of a better word, and that’s probably cliche. (It’s difficult) not always knowing how to handle these emotions, these feelings, not understanding what is normal; what’s not normal.
The thing that attracted me to help text was that it makes a space for grief and I get tired of the voice inside my own head. So, this just would pop up. I lost a friend recently, and I had a subscription. It was just another way to think about my friend, the loss, how I was dealing with it.
So, twice a week is the normal subscription text is that correct?
ML: Yes. Early on in the subscription we send a few more texts just because we feel like when people sign up they are seeking out additional support and therefore probably need some extra support. Then after two weeks or so it then does go to a normal cadence of twice a week.
Then we also acknowledge special dates and meaningful holidays for you. So if you have a birthday anniversary, a deathiversary, or a holiday that really is significant for you, if you let us know, we will reach out and send additional support around that time. Because, those are the times when people really tend to feel very isolated, or that family and members and friends tend to forget about. Therefore we will text family members and friends to remind them to show up for you as the griever. That’s one of the cool things about the subscription is that for every one person that signs up, they can invite two family members or friends to sign up as their supporters. We’ll text them one text a week that really gives them a practical tool, or teaches them something about your grief to help normalize the experience for you, so that way you feel more supported by your family members and friends.
EX: That’s interesting and important.
So as a gift I imagine this would be somewhat more practical, not to compete with, but more pragmatic than flowers. I could see this as a very useful, helpful, personal gift.
ML: Yeah, it’s been great. It’s one of the things that I use as a gift myself. Because we know that flowers, and bringing food over, and cards are very intentional and meaningful. They’ve been used for centuries as a standard sympathy gift. What we know about grief though, is that grief lasts a lot longer than those than those sympathy gifts do. So isn’t it a beautiful thought to be able to offer a sympathy gift that companions people on their grief journey for the first year after they’re bereaved. It’s really letting somebody know that, “Hey I get that your grief isn’t time bound, and that you’re going to need support throughout this first full year. And even for some people, moving into the second third or fourth year – our texts can offer support that long as well. It’s really just saying, “Hey, I get it. I get that this is going to be hard for you, and I want to give you something that will last the trajectory of your grief. And by the way, you can sign me up as a supporter, and I will be there too to support you alongside your journey.”
EX: The texts are intended as one way – inbound. So it’s not a chat, but if someone does text back, Helptext is prepared for that, no?
ML: Yes so it is one way, because we’re designed to be a public health intervention model, which means that we support large segments of the population who are struggling with grief and loss. Because of that, we do provide support one way. However, because it’s text message people can text you back, it’s an open channel, right? But we do have a team of mental health and bereavement specialists that review every inbound text message. We’ll reply to text messages under certain conditions, and we do manage expectations along the way. So when people reply, they get an automatic text saying our team will review what you’ve written and if it warrants a response you’ll hear from us. And people also acknowledge that they understand it’s a one-way and not two-way therapy when they go to sign up. But our text, when we do respond, it’s because we’re responding to somebody who may be perhaps in crisis, and needs immediate attention. So our our team will definitely address that if somebody has a question about needing extra resources, or needing to be connected with somebody locally in their community – we’ll respond and find support there.
Perhaps they have a a general question about grief and loss our team will take a second to respond to that, or maybe they need help with their profile, and we’ll go ahead and help them fix their profile if there’s a need. So we do interact, but it’s very limited in the ways that we interact.
EX: It’s good that it is available if needed and I think that’s very thoughtful. Thank you Melissa.
Is there anything else that people should know about HelpTexts that we have not covered?
ML: We noticed that a lot of people early in their grief, so within the first six months of being bereaved, tend to sign up for this type of support. And I think that’s because the idea of going outside of your house, jumping on a therapy call, or going into a group, can feel very overwhelming, and you might not have the emotional capacity to attend to those types of traditional grief support options. So what text does is it is a low-burden way to still receive support and still feel very normalized in your grief process. We see inbounds so people respond to us daily and you know we get things like, “Oh, thank you so much. I was thinking I was losing my mind, but your text just really made me see that it’s very normal in this grief process”, or “Thank you, I’m going to try that coping skill. I’ve never thought of that before” or “Your messages have been a lifeline for me, because I don’t have the support that I was hoping to have.”
So when you think about trying something new in the world of grief I always say try everything because you never know it’s going to work for you in terms of a support option. Not everything does, but the one thing that our texts do is really open your eyes to the the amount of tools that are out there and the type of coping strategies that you can try.
At minimum what it does is, give you education, give you resources, and give you tips, to really help you manage your grief and in that regard, I think it’s a very beautiful service.
EX: Executorium does these spots to educate executors, you know, there is no quid pro quo. We don’t get any kind of commission or anything on these, I just think executors need to know about HelpTexts. Any avenue to help you unburden yourself as you’re going through a loss is to be encouraged.
Bio
Melissa Lunardini, MA, MBA, FT, is the Head of Clinical for Help Texts. Melissa has 20 years of experience in program design and development in grief, loss, and trauma for healthcare, academia, for-profit, and non-profit industries. She specializes in childhood bereavement and the intersection of grief and technology. She holds a fellowship in Thanatology from the Association for Death Education and Counseling. Melissa strives to remain current with trends and research in the industry as a published researcher and peer reviewer. She is an international speaker on topics related to death, dying, and grief.
Disclaimer: The opinions of Executorium’s Estate Talks hosts and Estate Talks guests are not necessarily the opinion of Executorium.com LLC, its principals, or its employees.
Executorium.com: Estate Talks: Grief Support – What to Expect
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