The ICCM Journal | Autumn 2020 | V88 No. 3
51
we winged it and it worked Or how 9 ½ Authorities worked together to battle the Coronavirus The AGMA (Association of Greater Manchester Authorities) Bereavement Group was set up over 15 years ago to enable the managers in Greater Manchester to share information and came into its own over best value. The group now consists of nine of the ten authorities and also includes St Helens because… well it just wouldn’t be the same without Sonia.. Periodic meetings continued for a few years before fully re-establishing itself about 5 years ago with regular meetings sponsored by our partners in the industry. Word spread and we began to attract authorities from beyond Greater Manchester so we evolved into the NW Bereavement Managers Group which in turn led to a working partnership with the ICCM to form the NW branch. Behind the meetings was the group email which enabled people to tap into the wealth of experience across the region and ask questions and get assistance with any issues. This has been invaluable. Whilst the larger group took on a life of its own, the AGMA group grew stronger and closer in the way we worked together. The emails were added to by a WhatsApp group and what started out as a group of colleagues has become a group of friends. As the virus started to take hold we took the decision that as a group we would work together and stand together. This meant sharing information and plans and agreeing that we would be consistent in what we were asking from the funeral directors. The biggest issue we faced was that our “forgotten“ services were now being pushed to the fore and everyone suddenly became an expert in bereavement services deciding how services should be run without the courtesy of liaising with the experience of existing bereavement services managers. As bereavement professionals, whose aim is to support families through the worst time of their lives, to suddenly having to shut our offices and not be permitted to work with the bereaved in our community, was very difficult as it went against everything we are here to do. We did a quick count up and established that between the service managers across the 10 authorities we had 252 years service in bereavement which even with our addled brains could work out this is an average of 25.2 years each, which is a pretty impressive knowledge bank so we thought we knew what we were talking about. As you can see.. This guy makes up most of those years.. We were given figures of expected deaths to give us sleepless nights
(Mike Gurney Tameside)
Blue – Predicted deaths (peaking at just below 400), Yellow – Covid-19 predicted deaths, Black – actual deaths registered in one Borough (peaking at 125), Green actual deaths of residents in Borough, Red – Actual cremations (peaking at 75), Brown – actual burials (peaking at 20).
