About this course

Learning Objectives

• Identify expected grief response of children at each age/developmental stage, while considering the need for flexibility in applying these expectations.
• Assess the unique needs of grieving children, with focus on how clinicians can meet these needs directly, as well as how they can assist caregivers, teachers, mentors, and other adults to create a community of support for grieving children.
• Apply interventions for children who are grieving in normal and non-problem ways, as well as identify appropriate resources, referrals, and interventions for children who need more intensive grief support.

Learning Levels

• Introductory

Target Audience

Course Instructor(s)

• 

  Litsa Williams MA, LCSW-C

  Litsa Williams, MA, LCSW-C is the co-founder of the online grief organization What’s Your Grief. She’s a grief therapist with 15 years of experience, with expertise in sudden and traumatic loss as well as ambiguous grief. Drawing on personal and professional experience with grief, WYG was built as a resource offering concrete, practical, creative, down-to-earth, and relatable support, founded on the values of psychoeducation and creative coping. It has grown to serve more than 3 million visitors each year. Litsa received her master's degree in Clinical Social Work from the University of Maryland School of Social Work, as well as a master’s degree in Philosophy from the University of Warwick (UK). She has been interviewed as a grief expert for the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, NPR, and New York Times. She co-authored the 2022 book What's Your Grief: Lists to Help You Through Any Loss.

• 

  Eleanor Haley, MS

  Eleanor Haley, MS is co-founder of What’s Your Grief, one of the country’s largest online grief and bereavement support communities which is accessed by over 3 million grievers every year. With a background in counseling psychology, Eleanor has over 15 years of expertise in grief, with expertise in working with families who have experienced traumatic and unexpected losses. She is co-author of the book What's Your Grief: Lists to Help You Through Any Loss and has co-authored 15 grief publications used in hospitals, hospices, funeral homes, and OPOs across the US and Canada. She has experience teaching psychology courses at the college level and is passionate about innovative teaching methods, technologies, and pedagogical approaches to enhance grief education and support. She has been interviewed as a grief expert for media outlets including NPR, Washington Post, The New York Times, USNews, and Huffington Post.

Disclosure

References

• Black, S. (2005). When Children Grieve How teachers and counselors can reach out to bereaved students. American School Board Journal, 192(8), 28.
• Brown, J. A., Jimerson, S. R., & Comerchero, V. A. (2015). Cognitive development considerations to support bereaved students: Practical applications for school psychologists. Contemporary School Psychology, 19(3), 103-111.
• Dogan-Ates, A. (2010). Developmental differences in children's and adolescents' post-disaster reactions. Issues in mental health nursing, 31(7), 470-476.
• Fogarty, J. A. (2019). The magical thoughts of grieving children: Treating children with complicated mourning and advice for parents. Routledge.
• Galotti, K. M. (2015). Cognitive development: Infancy through adolescence. Sage Publications.
• Klass, D., Silverman, P. R., & Nickman, S. (Eds.). (2014). Continuing bonds: New understandings of grief. Taylor & Francis.
• Klass, D., & Steffen, E. M. (Eds.). (2017). Continuing bonds in bereavement: New directions for research and practice. Routledge.
• Lytje, M., & Dyregrov, A. (2019). The price of loss–a literature review of the psychosocial and health consequences of childhood bereavement. Bereavement Care, 38(1), 13-22.
• Oltjenbruns, K. A. (2001). Developmental context of childhood: Grief and regrief phenomena.
• Rabenstein, S. (2017). Assessing grief and loss in children and adolescents. In Understanding Child and Adolescent Grief (pp. 19-33). Routledge.
• Martin, T. L. (2019). Worden, JW (2018). Grief Counseling and Grief Therapy. A Handbook for the Mental Health Practitioner.
• Bergman, A. S., Axberg, U., & Hanson, E. (2017). When a parent dies–a systematic review of the effects of support programs for parentally bereaved children and their caregivers. BMC Palliative Care, 16(1), 1-15.
• Hua, P., Huang, C., Bugeja, L., Wayland, S., & Maple, M. (2020). A systematic review on the protective factors that reduce suicidality following childhood exposure to external cause parental death, including suicide. Journal of affective disorders reports, 100032.
• Hua, P., Maple, M., Hay, K., & Bugeja, L. (2020). Theoretical frameworks informing the relationship between parental death and suicidal behaviour: A scoping review. Heliyon, 6(5).
• Calderaro, M., Baethge, C., Bermpohl, F., Gutwinski, S., Schouler-Ocak, M., & Henssler, J. (2022). Offspring's risk for suicidal behaviour in relation to parental death by suicide: systematic review and meta-analysis and a model for familial transmission of suicide. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 220(3), 121-129.