Up-To-Date Grief Theory and Foundational Knowledge

• Key definitions: Grief, disenfranchised grief, prolonged grief disorder, traumatic grief
• Differences between typical and traumatic grief
• Factors that impact children’s grief reactions
• Children’s concept of death at different ages and stages

Figuring Out What’s Going On: Assessing Bereaved Children and Teens

• Areas to assess
• Innovative model for assessing the unique needs of bereaved children and their families

Getting Innovative: Play and Expressive Arts to Help Children Through Their Grief Journey

• Therapeutic games, art, and stories to help bereaved children open up, learn healthy coping tools, express sadness, resolve guilt, commemorate the deceased, manage grief bursts
• Family play therapy interventions to open communication between children and their caregivers

What To Do When Grief Gets More Complicated

• Equip caregivers with sensitive and age-appropriate ways to talk with children about tough issues such as suicide, homicide, and drug overdose
• Unique activities to address the toughest situations: Suicide, homicide, mass violence, military casualties, natural disasters, and other types of loss
• Evidence-based treatment for traumatic grief

Common Barriers

• What holds families and professionals alike back from entering into conversations about death with a child?
• Strategies and approaches for navigating these barriers
• Risks and limitations

Grief Literacy

• What is grief literacy and why is it important?
• How do we explain the following to kids: “Death”, “Overdose”, “Substance Use”, “Cremation”, “Grief”

Talking with Children about a Death from Substance Use

• Language to avoid
• A sample conversation

5 Common Concerns of Grieving Children

• Why it’s important for adults to initiate the conversation about these 5 common concerns
• Examples of ways to address these concerns

Practical Support Strategies

• Addressing informational gaps
• Modeling grief
• Helping the child narrate their story
• Fostering connection with the person who died

Signs that Children May Need Additional Support

• Irish child bereavement pyramid
• Indications that children need more support than what they are currently receiving

Useful Resources

• Literary, web, and program resources

Grief and loss issues in today’s world focusing on climate change

• Cognitive developmental understanding of young people
• Generations impacted by climate change 

Promoting dialogue with youth about climate change

• Definitions
• Conversations
• Age-appropriate resources for dialogue (in handout)

Case Studies and techniques to use with young people about climate change

• Environmental activities with children and climate change
• Provide informative websites for young people (in handout)

Current research on the impact of climate change on young people

• Research has just begun and mostly limited to the past few years.
• Hickman et al. 2022
• The Hispanic Resource Foundation 2020
• Luis et al. 2020

Non-Death Losses Impacting Children and Adolescents 

Examine the Pandemic’s Impact on Childhood Grief and the Clients you Serve 

Common Emotional, Social, Physical, and Spiritual Reactions to Non-Death Loss  

• Impact on your young clients

Moving Beyond a Staged or Linear Model of Grief Counseling to Support Your Grieving Clients 

• Using the Core Principles of Grief-Informed Practice to enhance your work and advocacy for grieving children and adolescents 
• Consider current limitations of the research and intervention risks