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Trying to conceive

At COPE, we’re here for you from the very beginning. Access trusted guidance, expert information, and compassionate support as you navigate the journey of trying to conceive.

Coping with loss

Coping with loss is deeply personal and painful — COPE offers gentle support, guidance, and understanding to help you navigate this difficult time.

Pregnancy

Navigate your pregnancy with confidence using COPE’s expert advice, emotional support, and reliable information tailored for every step of the journey.

Birth

Providing you with evidence based information to help prepare and nurture yourself before, during and following birth

New parents

Early parenthood can be joyful, challenging and everything in between. COPE provides you with expert guidance and real insights to help you feel seen and supported every step of the way.

Family, Friends & Community

Whether you're a partner, friend, or family member, COPE provides guidance and support to help you care for your loved one and yourself through every stage of parenthood.

Workplace support

COPE provides guidance and resources to help workplaces support the emotional wellbeing of expecting and new parents with care and understanding.

COPE Directory

If you're going through a tough time, you're not alone. The COPE Directory is a supportive first step toward finding the right help, close to home and tailored to your needs

About us

At COPE, we believe every parent deserves access to compassionate support and reliable information. Our mission is to raise awareness, reduce stigma, and empower families facing perinatal mental health challenges.

Get involved

Your support can make a lasting impact. By donating to COPE, you help to provide vital support, resources, and research for families facing perinatal mental health challenges. Together, we can make sure no parent is alone.

Getting help

Understand when to seek help, how to take the first step of talking to someone, types of support available, plus how to find specialised perinatal mental health support near you.

  • Six hours of online learning

  • Assessment at the end of each module to consolidate your learning

  • Digital certificate of completion

  • Accredited by COPE: Centre of Perinatal Excellence

$450 AUD (plus GST)

Note: Purchase of this course entitles course access and certification for one person only. Group discounts apply for organisations. To enquire, please contact [email protected]

Course Overview

The loss of a baby through miscarriage, stillbirth, neonatal death or later death, is recognised as a traumatic event that can trigger not only grief and bereavement, but complicated grief, depression, anxiety, acute stress disorder and PTSD.

This perinatal loss training​ is designed to complement your training in mental health and provide you with the relevant additional information and skills to build your confidence in working with women and couples who have lost babies.

This course is based on empirical research into grief and loss in general, and on perinatal loss specifically. The content is underpinned by theories and models of grief, Attachment Theory, Psychodynamic Theory, Existential Psychology, Cognitive-vulnerability Stress Theories, Cognitive Therapy, Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy, Narrative Therapy, Mindfulness-based therapies and Interpersonal Psychotherapy.

This course covers general aspects of perinatal mental health and diagnostic issues in light of perinatal loss and grief. Dr Renée Miller shares over 20 years of clinical experience working in perinatal mental health and with bereaved parents.

Course learning outcomes

  1. Understand the different types of losses, and the psychosocial consequences of perinatal loss, from pre-conception through to the postnatal period, and beyond.

  2. Conceptualise childbearing as adult developmental stage (self narratives, meaning, social and cultural contexts).

  3. Understand grief, loss, and adaptation to loss as a function of attachment.

  4. Become informed about grief theories.

  5. Discern the ‘typical’ grief trajectory from complicated grief.

  6. Understand perinatal loss within the biopsychosocial model of perinatal mental health.

  7. Use frameworks for assisting clients in adjusting to loss through fertility challenges.

  8. Apply therapeutic approaches to counselling clients who have experienced perinatal loss.

Course timeline

Complete this perinatal grief and loss training​ course at your own pace.  We recommend completing within twelve (12) weeks to consolidate your learning.

*Please note: The timeframe of 12 weeks is purely a suggestion to consolidate your learning.  You will not lose access to the course after this time, rather the course remains available to complete at your own pace.

Conditions

Purchasing this course entitles access of content and certification by one person only. Sharing of content is in breach of the terms of sale.

To enquire about student fees, discounts for group bookings or arrange for an invoice to be prepared, contact us at [email protected].

About the Presenter

Dr Renée Miller is the Principal Clinical Psychologist of The Perinatal Loss Centre and the Antenatal & Postnatal Psychology Network in Melbourne, Australia. Renée established The Perinatal Loss Centre with Bereavement Midwife, Eliza Strauss to provide best-practice support and education to health practitioners, bereaved parents, and their families.

Renée has worked in the field of Perinatal Mental Health for over 20 years, exclusively seeing women and couples facing difficulties surrounding conception, pregnancy, birth, postnatal adjustment, and reproductive loss.

Renée is a passionate advocate for the recognition of Perinatal Mental Health, as an area of specialty.

Informed by her research in the area of postnatal depression, anxiety and stress in first-time mothers, and as a trained couples’ therapist, Renée has a particular interest in the impact of perinatal loss on relationships and ongoing perinatal mental health. In her course “Perinatal Loss in Practice: What Therapists Need to Know”, Renée distills both the research, and the practicalities of working with loss. She emphasises the importance of seeing the individual as a unique participant in their grief experience, whilst being informed by the grief and loss literature to understand the client’s responses to grief.

The course covers the impact of attachment and attachment styles on a developing pregnancy, on the experience of loss and on subsequent pregnancies. The course also highlights diagnostic considerations for therapists working with bereaved parents; a framework for addressing loss in the broader context of perinatal mental health; and an integration of a number of therapeutic approaches helpful in working with loss.

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