Research
Researching what grief-informed systems can look like.
Cassidie Carmen Bates, MPP, studies how bereavement policies and institutional systems can better support grieving people — especially those navigating loss while also carrying legal, financial, and administrative responsibilities after a death. Her work focuses on bereavement leave, executor realities, lived expertise, and the structural gaps that leave grieving workers unsupported in workplaces and institutions.
why this work exists
Grief is universal, but support is uneven. Many people return to work within days of loss. Executors are often asked to navigate legal, financial, and administrative systems while grieving. Institutions may recognize the issue, but often lack the language, structure, or urgency to respond well. This work asks what better support could look like and how those systems begin to take shape.
What makes this research different
Most grief support focuses on emotional care. Most estate resources focus on legal or financial tasks. But many people are forced to navigate both at once.
Cassidie’s work examines the gap between grief support and estate responsibility, especially for workers who are grieving while also serving as executors or fiduciaries. This research brings together policy analysis, lived expertise, and institutional design to explore how workplaces and systems can respond with more clarity, compassion, and structure.
Published research & Articles
areas of focus
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Research and analysis on how workplaces respond to loss, where policies fall short, and what more humane systems require.
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Examination of the hidden labor carried by those responsible for paperwork, decision-making, and logistics after death.
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Exploration of how grief shapes workplaces, public life, and the systems people move through after loss.
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A bridge between personal experience, public scholarship, awareness, and systems change.
Awards
Public Policy & Advocacy
Before focusing on grief-informed bereavement policy, Cassidie spent years building lived-expertise advocacy models in food security and public policy. This work reflects the foundation of her current research approach: policy shaped by the people most directly impacted.