SOMETHING almost magical is happening every month at Bentons Square Community Centre, and it’s transforming the lives of people who are grieving.
A support group called Projex J and its three-word transformative and inspirational motto Get busy living, is giving people trapped in a cycle of sadness and despair a way to move forward.
The trailblazing support group that welcomes people of all ages and backgrounds to come together to share their stories or simply listen, is the brainchild of Chantelle Ross, whose 23-year-old son Jamerson was killed in a road incident in Hastings in 2022.
It’s that lived experience that partly makes Ross connect so well with others on the grief journey – whether it’s through the loss of a loved one through death or divorce, or the loss of a part of a life that is forever gone.
Just three months after her son died, and despite drowning in the immense loss and hopelessness she felt, Ross got busy living and focussed on instigating change in the therapy and grief space.
She started an annual fishing competition in her son’s name at Hastings to raise awareness and help finance an inspirational therapy group Projex J, a service she started to provide affordable counselling and support to those in need.
“What I found when I needed help to work through my grief and pain was that therapy was expensive and not accessible to everyone so, with the help of Bentons Square Community Centre, I started a therapy/support group myself,” she said.
The group was almost instantly successful, partly because of Ross’s endearingly open, honest and welcoming approach, and partly because it is filling a desperate need for community-based grief support.
“We have met so many incredible people who have been suffering silently with their grief, unheard,” she said. “Some of them come along reluctantly after months or even years unable to find release or even talk about their struggles, but they always get something out of these sessions and they come back.”
Ross said it was well known among psychologists that talking and sharing was often the best way to work through personal pain, and a great way to exorcise the demons of loss and suffering.
“People who come to the sessions experience beautiful connections with others, just through sharing and the realisation that they are not alone, everyone in the room understands and relates to them,” she said.
“It’s support, it’s validation of your feelings, it’s being part of something that’s bigger.”
The sessions will often include guest speakers, such as Mornington Peninsula psychologist Ruth Chatwin and clinical hypnotherapist and meditation teacher Jan Winslade. There are also occasional art sessions where people in grief can explore creativity as a form of therapy.
“We recognise that dealing with loss is not a one size fits all approach, so we look at all types of support and therapies, and people can find what suits and works for them,” Ross said.
The sessions were structured according to the need and “mood” of the room, and there was no set agenda or schedule she felt obligated to follow.
“But, always at the end of our sessions, people are lighter and happier. They may have had nowhere to put their grief, nowhere to put it in perspective and share, and it’s a lifeline for them,” Ross said.
“I’d love to make this kind of support and affordable counselling available to everyone, we are looking to going Victoria wide, and maybe more, there is such a need.”
Projex J has also applied for not-for-profit status so it can raise money and provide more targeted grief support to the wider community.
Sessions run on the first Wednesday of each month at Bentons Square Community Centre, 5.30pm to 6.30pm.
For details call Chantelle Ross on 0419 661 215.
