Design for the unaware concerns

Design for the unaware concerns: Support healthy grieving in working context by building connections between the bereaved and their colleagues

Wan, Rong (TU Delft Industrial Design Engineering)

Sonneveld, M.H. (mentor)
Ruiter, I.A. (mentor)

Delft University of Technology

Delft University of Technology

Integrated Product Design

2021-11-23

Support people, especially support the bereaved people, is a challenging task. People’s attitudes towards death vary because many factors can influence it, such as gender, age, educational background, cultural and religious factors. The personality of the attitudes towards death stops people from supporting the bereaved actively because they are aware that their unprofessional actions may cause secondary injury and offend. Similarly, it makes it difficult for the bereaved to express their needs because of the sensitivity of the death.

In most situations, due to the concerns listed above, supporting the bereaved to cope healthily is considered as a task that should be better conducted by formal support, such as support provided by psychologists and social workers. However, it is proved that informal social support is also necessary for healthy grieving.

This project explores the opportunity of promoting informal social support in the working context. In detail, it focuses on supporting the bereaved to have a healthy grieving by facilitating the support provided by their colleagues. Based on the “Network of care” theory, this project defines all stakeholders in three groups: The bereaved, the colleagues, and the facilitator. This project explores the barriers that stop the colleagues from supporting the bereaved and studies the possibility for the facilitator to facilitate a support strategy. Choosing IDE faculty as the project context, this project ends up with a feasible service supported ritual that can reduce the unaware concerns related to death, raise the awareness of supporting each other, and build the connection between the bereaved and their colleagues, concern-free and caring.

Ritual
Connection building
Healthy grieving
Informal social support

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:348e2a89-02ed-4881-b77c-bff209af9991

Double degree in Integrated Product Design and Strategic Product Design

Student theses

master thesis

© 2021 Rong Wan