MSW 533 Week 7 Thirteen-Month Bereavement Plan Example

Course	MSW 533 Death, Dying, and Bereavement
Week	7
Paper type	Bereavement support plan
Length	About 480 words, 5 pages
Format	APA 7 student paper
School	Chamberlain University
Program	Master of Social Work (MSW)
Updated	October 2026

Free sample paper for MSW 533 Week 7

Thirteen-Month Bereavement Support Plan After J.'s Death Under Home Hospice: Scope Drawn Wider Than the Hospital's List, Rows With Dates, Contact Thin Early and Thicker Later, a Readable Threshold and Planned Endings

Student Name

Chamberlain University

MSW 533: Death, Dying, and Bereavement

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

What this page is doingThe title draws the scope honestly and schedules contact by month, which is what turns intentions into a plan.

Who This Covers

C., 61, J.'s spouse. The 15-year-old at home. J.'s 27-year-old son from an earlier marriage, who lives out of state. J.'s sister, who visited every afternoon in the last two months. The hospice record listed only C. as the bereavement contact.

Drawing the scope wider has a cost: each added person needs contact, and the coordinator's caseload is fixed. The plan keeps contact with the stepson and the sister to two calls each, so the wider scope does not crowd out C. and the teenager.

What this page is doingDrawing the scope wider than the hospice record shows who else lost J. and needs a plan.

Why Thirteen Months

Medicare's hospice rules require bereavement services for the family for up to a year after the death (Condition of Participation: Core Services, 2024). The plan runs thirteen months so it includes the first anniversary.

The Schedule

Table 1

Bereavement Contacts by Month

Month	Contact	Who	Why then
1	Call at two weeks; mailed booklet on grief	Bereavement coordinator	Funeral over, visitors gone
2	Call; invitation to the spring support group	Coordinator	Restoration tasks mounting
3	Home visit with C.; call to J.'s sister	Social worker	First quiet month
4	Letter to the 15-year-old with the school counselor's name	Social worker	Before summer break
6	Call; brief grief screen with C.	Coordinator	Midpoint check
8	Call to C.'s adult son	Social worker	Often forgotten at a distance
9 to 11	Monthly calls; holiday letter in December	Coordinator	First holidays
12	Anniversary call and card to all four	Social worker	Anniversary
13	Closing call; referral list	Coordinator	Planned ending

Note. Note. Contact is thin in the first weeks, when family and friends are present, and thicker later, when they often withdraw.

Thin Early, Thicker Later

In the first weeks, C. has visitors and tasks. By month three, the visitors have gone. Grief often moves between loss and rebuilding (Stroebe & Schut, 1999), and support is scheduled to arrive when the household is quieter.

A Threshold Somebody Can Read

At the month 6 call, if C. reports daily intense yearning, inability to work or withdrawal from everyone, or any thoughts of suicide, the coordinator refers C. the same week to a clinician and informs the social worker. Thoughts of suicide trigger an immediate call to the on-call clinician.

What this page is doingA threshold written as behaviors any coordinator can hear keeps referral from depending on clinical judgment over the phone.

Planned Endings

At month 13, the coordinator tells C. that the hospice contact is ending, reviews what helped and gives a list of community groups and counselors. Each family member receives a closing card.

What this page is doingPlanning the ending, with a review of what helped, gives the family a clear close instead of contact that simply stops.

References

Condition of Participation: Core Services, 42 C.F.R. § 418.64 (2024).

Stroebe, M., & Schut, H. (1999). The dual process model of coping with bereavement: Rationale and description. Death Studies, 23(3), 197-224. https://doi.org/10.1080/074811899201046

MSW 533 Week 7 instructions, in plain terms

The bereavement plan looks like a schedule with reasons attached. Start by saying who it covers, and draw the list wider than the hospital or hospice record when others lost the person too. Give each contact a row: month, type of contact, who makes it and why then. Schedule contact thin early, when family and friends are present, and thicker later, when they often withdraw. Write a threshold for referral as behaviors any coordinator could hear on a call, with an immediate step for risk of suicide. Plan endings, so the family knows when contact stops and what continues. Tie the plan's length to the program's requirements and the anniversary.

How the MSW 533 Week 7 example is put together

The scope section names C., the 15-year-old, C.'s adult stepson out of state and J.'s sister, against the single contact on the hospice record. The length section cites Condition of Participation: Core Services (2024) for a year of bereavement services and adds a month for the anniversary. Table 1 schedules contacts from a two-week call and booklet through a third-month visit, letters, a sixth-month screen, a call to the stepson, holiday contact, anniversary cards and a closing call. A section explains thin early and thicker later, citing Stroebe and Schut (1999). The threshold names daily intense yearning, inability to work, withdrawal and suicidal thoughts, and the ending reviews what helped.

Reading the MSW 533 Week 7 grading rubric

The plan earns its marks through rows rather than intentions. A plan that promises support and follow-up without dates or names loses the most. Faculty credit a scope drawn honestly, contacts timed to when support is most needed, a threshold written as observable behaviors and a planned ending. Tying the plan to program requirements shows professional grounding. Including people outside the household who lost the person demonstrates attention to the whole network. A clinical component is not required but referral routes should be clear. Program rules belong in the reference list, and the schedule should be realistic for a coordinator's caseload.

MSW 533 Week 7 help from the desk

Bereavement plans most often lose points by offering support in general terms, such as regular check-ins, with no schedule. Another common gap is covering only the person on the hospice record, missing children, out-of-state relatives or friends. Some plans front-load contact in the first weeks and fall silent when support is needed most. Others have no threshold for referral, leaving the decision to a coordinator's impression. If your family is different, perhaps parents after a child's death, widen the scope to siblings and grandparents and keep the same columns. A plan built this way for your family will show on one page who hears from the hospice in month nine. Put the anniversary on the calendar first and build backward.

Get a MSW-533 Week 7 example written to your instructions

Send the case and the plan template your section published, and a completed plan comes back inside 24 to 48 hours at no charge. Tell us how many weeks the assignment covers. A plan running to six weeks and one running to thirteen months are different documents, and the second is where most of the thinking has to go.

More MSW 533 papers and MSW samples

MSW 533 Week 7 questions, answered

How long should the plan run?

Whatever the assignment sets, and if it sets nothing, thirteen months is a defensible span because it carries the household past the first anniversary. What matters more than the length is that the contacts thin out on a stated reasoning and that the plan says out loud when and how it ends. An open-ended plan reads as unplanned.

Does the plan need a clinical component?

It needs a threshold and a destination, which is not the same as delivering treatment. Most rubrics want the writer to show they can tell ordinary bereavement from a presentation needing more, then hand it on accurately. Writing a course of therapy into a support plan usually costs marks for exceeding the role the assignment described.

Can the plan include the worker's own contact?

Yes, and it should be specific about it. Naming which contacts the worker makes personally, which belong to a volunteer or a group, and what happens when the worker leaves the agency is exactly the sort of detail these rubrics reward. Plans depending entirely on one named person tend to be marked down for that reason.

Where can I find a free MSW 533 Week 7 sample paper?

You can read a full MSW 533 Week 7 bereavement support plan after a home hospice death here, with its month-by-month schedule and margin notes.

Why is contact thicker later in the MSW 533 Week 7 sample?

Because visitors and helpers are present in the first weeks and often withdraw by the third month, so the plan schedules more contact when the household is quieter.