Grief Works — Julia Samuel’s grief programme, made into an app

Designing the app

Grief Works is Julia Samuel’s grief programme, made into an app. She is a psychotherapist with more than thirty years of experience, founder of Child Bereavement UK and a Sunday Times bestselling author. Based on her book Grief Works, the programme makes her approach available day to day, at any hour, for less than the cost of a monthly therapy session.

The programme has 28 guided sessions, each around ten to fifteen minutes, alongside more than 40 tools people can turn to for different situations and moments.

We designed the experience to work in both ways: as a structured programme with a clear path through grief, and as a library of support people can return to whenever it is useful.

A spread of Grief Works app screens: the morning reflection, the journal, the session list, the tools library and the audio player.

Live Sessions

Live Sessions brought another kind of support into Grief Works: the chance to spend time with Julia and other people going through grief.

They run in two forms. Free community sessions are open to anyone and can be joined from the web, without downloading the app or creating an account. Weekly meet-ups sit inside the paid programme and are available to members in the app.

I designed and built the landing page for public session sign-ups, created the session artwork, shaped the in-app experience, and designed the supporting email journey around registration and attendance.

A social post announcing a free community live session with Julia Samuel.

The session’s page on the Grief Works site, with a register button.

The live community schedule in the Grief Works app.

Introducing Julia

The masterclass is an evergreen webinar: a filmed class with Julia called Understanding Grief, made to introduce her and the programme, and the landing point for an ad campaign.

In the class Julia talks about her background and why she made the programme, offers practical things people can take away and use, and explains where the app helps. A series of emails follows, each one carrying something useful to read and a little more about the app.

A still from the masterclass film, an interview with Julia Samuel in a plant-filled room.

Designing the website

The website introduces Grief Works, what the programme offers, Julia’s approach, and what people can expect before joining.

It also gave us room to explore different ways into the programme. We created experiences like the Understanding Grief masterclass and a short assessment, each offering something useful before introducing the app.

I designed these pages and the journeys around them, connecting campaigns and content back to the programme.

The Grief Works site: the home page hero, the organisations that endorse it, and a reader’s review.