<< Background >>The Coronavirus-19 outbreak has raised huge societal challenges worldwide and Europe is no exception. But the true impact of this pandemic is yet to be discovered. So far, more than 3 million deaths have been directly reported to COVID-19, so it is estimated that 9 million people have been bereaved by a COVID-19 loss (Verdery, 2021) and thousands of them may suffer from complicated grief reactions (Lee & Neimeyer, 2020). Yet, other authors like Morgan, et al. (2020) argue that, to calculate the real death toll of this pandemic, we have to look not only to COVID-19 direct deaths, but also to excess mortality (or indirect deaths) due to the COVID-19 impact in the global health system.The public health measures surrounding COVID-19 to mitigate and contain the outbreak, and practices around death and dying during this pandemic, introduced nuances in the bereavement process that must be recognized and addressed (Lowe et al., 2020; Sroebe & Shut, 2020). With significant restrictions to the social and cultural practices that normal bereavement usually relies upon, and the limitations on social support in grief and end-of-life situations, it is expected that the impact on the mental health of bereaved individuals will be significant (Stroebe & Schut, 2020). Although research is not yet able to report on the psychological impact in bereaved people during the COVID-19 pandemic (Burrell & Selman, 2020; Singer & Spiegel, 2020), it can be extrapolated that many may experience prominent levels of anxiety and/or depression during this period, predicting an increase in the number of prolonged grief disorders, depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress. The distinct COVID-19 situations in European countries in terms of direct deaths, justify accurate intervention and motivated the development of this strategic Partnership for Cooperation between 4 countries. While Portugal, Spain and Italy have had more than 165 deaths per 100.000 people, Denmark has experienced less than 45 deaths per 100.000 people. This situation in particularly problematic in countries like Portugal, Spain and Italy, where there is no national, public health strategy to address grief and bereavement issues and an absence of an educational culture about death and dying that prevents these issues from being adequately addressed, even in the training of health professionals (and other professionals indirectly involved) (Aoun et al., 2019).This consortium is composed by five partners from Portugal, Spain, Italy and Denmark. A combination between public and private organizations involved in the training of professionals to deal with bereaved people will allow learning from the different cultural contexts and different levels of expertise in grief and bereavement support. Three university partners: ISMAI/Maiêutica (P1 – Portugal) Universidad de Comillas (P3 – Spain) and Università del Salento (P4 – Italy) joined efforts with the Psychology Service from a University Hospital (P2 - Hospital S. João) in Portugal and the Danish National Center for Grief (P5 – DNCG), a national reference center for grief intervention from Denmark. These partners constitute the AURORA@COVID19-EU consortium, as a Partnership for Cooperation to create opportunities to train direct agents (different health professionals) and indirect agents (key stakeholders and different community members) in issues of bereavement and death and update clinical practice interventions to the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. This strategy will reach a higher number of bereaved people under a public health model and, ultimately, promote more capacitated, resilient compassionate communities.<< Objectives >>This proposal aims to facilitate a unified, articulated response for grief and bereavement support in the aftermath of COVID-19. Following a collaborative, joint effort between these partners to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in the bereavement process (that is already ongoing in the several countries), this project and this partnership aims to develop training resources and facilitate the good practices and education of formal and informal agents related to death and dying in times of COVID-19 pandemic. This partnership will involve researchers and health professionals who directly intervene with the bereaved people in times of COVID-19 pandemic, from different European countries, already integrated in support networks on their respective health systems. Benefiting from distinct levels of expertise related to death and dying during the COVID-19 pandemic, we will also adopt a community strategy to reach bereaved population, with vulnerability for the development of complicated grief reactions, by disseminating relevant information related to grief and resources available within the community to increase access to adequate intervention responses and reduce suffering. In parallel, a dissemination campaign will raise public awareness and enhance the resources of bereaved people. According to a three-tier grief intervention model, this partnership will develop training manuals for different professionals to respond to each level of needs in terms of bereavement support during the COVID-19 pandemic, considering the risk of complicated grief reactions. A pilot phase will also be carried out within this partnership to apply the main project results in local training activities for different professionals (direct and indirect agents for bereavement support), and also implement an undated clinical intervention with bereaved people with complicated grief reactions. This will indirectly impact our bereaved target group by enhancing and promoting more compassionate communities, better prepared to provide the support that bereaved people need.<< Implementation >>This consortium will create innovative project outputs and develop training opportunities to reinforce a local network to improve bereavement support in the communities surrounding the partners. This will contribute to diminish the burden of the already fragile mental health system in these southern European countries as well as reduce the risks of unmet support needs from the bereaved people. Our proposal will follow a systematic approach centered on a public health model of bereavement intervention, with the following main activities: a) Project dissemination initiatives: Creation of a website with a compilation of resources on bereavement in several languages (English, Portuguese, Castellan/Spanish, Italian and Danish) for a diversity of users, and with resources adjusted to different target groups, like direct agents (health professionals) and indirect agents (other professionals or educators) and the general population. An informative flyer will be distributed in the community, especially targeting vulnerable people, from underprivileged groups, with less access to the available health resources. A network of institutions involved as Associate Partners will be established to increase dissemination and achieve the required target groups, especially in less privileged neighborhoods from these communities; b) Pilot phase of professional training and intervention: After the development of the three training manuals for direct and indirect agents, these professionals will be trained (through in-presence and online training events) and involved to address the support needs of bereaved people and contribute to a culture of compassion around death and dying, and increase the acceptance and normalization of bereavement experiences; Finally, a group of trained clinical psychologists will lead and implement a clinical study (involving different partners) to study the outcome of bereavement interventions, adjusted to COVID-19 issues, to prevent and alleviate complicated grief reactions. This clinical study will assess the effectiveness of these intervention formats in terms of professional competence (target group of health professionals) and in the well-being of bereaved clients.These activities will strengthen the capacity to disseminate and implement good practices to support the bereaved population most affected by this pandemic situation.<< Results >>Our project results align with the purpose of stimulating a more compassionate community to enhances a wider, more accepting grief and bereavement culture, while at the same time respecting the idiosyncrasy of the COVID-19 pandemic situation. Project Results are sustained in three main axes: 1) the development of training manuals (that will be the project outputs) that will then be used in 2) local training activities for the different professionals, direct and indirect agents that intervene with bereaved people, and 3) to disseminate Good Practice guidelines for intervening with bereaved people. All these materials will be available in 5 languages (English, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, and Danish).Particularly, our main project results will be: i) a training manual for psychologists (R1) in order to develop the competences and skills to perform adequate interventions in this context, particularly and targeting the bereaved population with complicated grief reactions; ii) a training manual for direct agents (R2), i.e., health professionals working with bereaved people (such as doctors, nurses, social assistances, and other welfare professionals) to facilitate an adequate intervention and to prevent and assess people with complicated grief reactions, who might need to be referred to specialized intervention; iii) a training manual for indirect agents (R3), namely social gate keepers and key community members (such as pharmacists, informal caregivers, priests and religious people, social educators implicated in the support system of bereaved people in the general population). Together, these training resources will be applied in the most affected countries by the pandemic (Spain, Portugal and Italy) and train the different target groups (i.e., mental-health professionals, and other health professionals or educators).A piloting stage will also be carried out within this partnership to apply the main project results developed, including through: a. Clinical Study intervention for bereaved people to assess the effectiveness of these interventions to prevent and alleviate complicated grief reactions during the COVID-19 pandemic; b. Local Training events with psychologists with 2-days, in-presence training (as a result of R1); c. Local training with direct agents (as a result of the R2) with 2-days, online training; c. Local Training events with indirect agents (as a result of the R3) with one-day, online training; d. Finally, with the knowledge and input from the training events and the overall development of this project and community strategy dissemination, we will develop a Good Practice Guidelines Manual for Bereaved people (R4). As the DNCG states, “grief does not have to destroy lives”. The AURORA@COVID19-EU proposal aims to contribute for this endeavor by increasing and facilitating a unified, articulated response to grief and bereavement support in the aftermath of COVID-19, strengthened by the interchanging of experiences and expertise to will reinforce good practices in all partners.