Temporary memorial guidelines

By the time that you need to know if guidelines or advice for how to manage temporary memorials exist, in most cases it’s too late. Or at least you’re in a bit of a pickle that might have been avoided if you had known they existed.

Temporary memorials are really common after collective trauma events. These are the types of events that stop us in our tracks, make our guts clench and make us feel off kilter. They change parts of how we understand the world to work. Over the last few weeks, there have been a number of these events in the news. As humans, we have a strong drive inside us to connect with others in the hours and days after these events and we want to come together. We want to pay our respects, offer our condolences, grieve and to feel like we’re a part of something bigger.

Temporary memorials offer us a chance to do this. They are highly symbolic, drenched in meaning and feeling, but for the people who are charged (often at short notice, often with no warning, training or experience), they present a huge number of logistical challenges that come with high stakes consequences if you get them wrong.

Never fear, Shona Whitton has you covered on this front. In 2015, Shona undertook a Churchill Fellowship looking at international good practice when it comes to managing disaster memorials. She has worked to make that information available in a range of formats, including:

Red Cross Psychosocial guidelines for temporary memorial management.

As a guest on the memorials episode of the After the Disaster podcast.

A 1-page summary for the Australian Journal of Emergency Management.

Her Churchill Fellowship report.

Let’s hope you never need these. But just in case, have a look.