Sooner Hospice, LLC is the bereavement specialist in the community. We are bridging our relationships with independent/assisted living facilities, nursing facilities and the community through education, support of the residents, staff and the families they serve.

We carry out Sooner Hospice’s purpose by providing a bereavement program for families we serve ensuring support, education and skills, which will assist in their grief journey. We continue to follow our families for a minimum of 13 months, if the family desires.

A memorial service is offered to families and staff once a year to honor and remember our patients that have died during the past year.

As a community service, Sooner Hospice will assist in planning and conducting memorial services for individual families, nursing facilities, and/or community organizations.

Gary Bosler, Administrator, embraces the bereavement program, recognizing the need for grief and loss education and the drive for an outstanding program.

Moya Cazares-Sealy, R.N. Director of Core Services and Assistant Administrator at Sooner Hospice specializes in grief, family studies and gerontology, and has worked closely with death and dying throughout her 39 years as a health care provider. For the past 12 years she has worked in the hospice industry. Moya is the founder and facilitator of “Loss and Beyond” a weekly grief support group dealing with all types of losses since October of 1990. After the death of her grandson and son, her goal was to help just one person not hit an emotional bottom after a major loss. She has been blessed tenfold to reach this goal over and over the last twenty years.

Bill Howse, Chaplain and Bereavement Coordinator at Sooner Hospice, specializes in pastoral ministry and theology along with family studies and gerontology. He is certified by the Oklahoma Baptist General Convention as a disaster relief chaplain. He has been a pastor for 27 years. Through hospice and his continued pastoral calling, Bill has extensive experience working with all aspects of grief. He is not a stranger to grief and has walked through the grief journey with a number of personal losses.

Our bereavement “program” far exceeds the state and federal requirements.

1. We begin working with the families and patients at admission with the anticipatory grief issues, recognizing the secondary losses (and very major losses) the family may have already suffered.
2. Individual and/or family meetings facilitating grief and loss recovery are an expected part of the bereavement program, and are provided as often as the plan of care indicates.
3. Grief and loss literature for specific types of loss are provided.
4. Six week closed support groups are offered throughout the year at different locations and times for convenience.
5. A partnership with "Loss and Beyond" grief recovery support group that meets weekly in south Oklahoma City. (Loss and Beyond is now in their 20th year of providing grief education and support in the community.)

Community education provided in:

• Healthcare agencies such as, independent living facilities, assisted living facilities, nursing facilities, adult day care facilities
• Community/senior centers
• Civic organizations
• Church organizations/groups
• Universities/colleges
• Professional organizations

Topics on grief education may include but are not limited to:

• Anticipatory grief
• Grief when giving up your home
• Complicated grief
• Parental loss of an adult child
• The orphaned adult
• Grief after the death of a spouse

For information on any of our groups or to schedule a presentation or workshop for your company or organization call, Moya Cazares-Sealy, RN (405) 812-9074 or Bill Howse, Chaplain (405) 625-3262.