Recently I was a guest at a volunteer appreciation dinner hosted by a local child and family bereavement support group, Ele's Place. (www.elesplace.org) I volunteer one night a week with Ele's as a helper in the activity room. The evening includes a potluck supper, therapy dog petting and cuddling, developmentally leveled support group meetings and parents mingling in the hallways or attending their own meetings while their children are nurtured in the kindest of ways. All evening long adults and children are reassured of the normalcy of what they are feeling, and for one night they rest in the neighborhood of relief.
There were several speakers at this volunteer appreciation dinner, mostly staff and leadership offering warm sentiments of gratitude and organizational updates. But the speaker I think of as keynote was a father of two, a widower and past recipient of Ele's Place services. With remarkable courage, this man shared an update on the life of his family since they closed their visits several years ago. He told the story of his great loss with a loving, linear timeline. Revealing so many vulnerabilities with the generosity of those who are painfully enlightened, this was his gift of gratitude to the group for the care and keeping of his children's hearts.
His speech had staying power. One mighty moment was his ability to convey what their connection to this bereavement support group meant to him, to his children. Paraphrased, 'After awhile people stopped calling and sending casseroles, and I understand, life goes on for them. But for the kids and I, life stopped. We could not yet move on. It was such a relief to be able to have a place to go each week where it was okay to still be feeling so much emotion, where other people were in the same place as we were.' Ah yes, to be in the neighborhood of relief.
When I was a kid and my mother died, there were no bereavement support groups for children as we know them today. Gosh, I could've really used a safe place. I know what it is like to have lived the alternative. Buck-up, push through it, and don't talk about it because it just makes everyone uncomfortable. It does not have to be this way for children today. If you know a child or family who needs the services of a bereavement group, you can search easily on The National Alliance for Grieving Children website (http://childrengrieve.org/find-support) for a group meeting nearby. You can do this a year or years after the death event occurred. It is not too late to help a child. Sometimes it is just too weighty a task for the grieving parent struggling to just get through a day (an hour, a moment) to seek this help. You can learn the details of the group meeting site, contact information, find out how it works, and give it to the bereaved in a gentle offering. Be the researcher for them, be the encourager, long after the calls end and the casseroles are cold.
Copyright (2014) Suzanne Bayer. All Rights Reserved.
I sometimes wonder if bereavement groups might inhibit people from moving on from the passing of a loved one, almost like a group that enables them to remain in grief.
ReplyDeleteWhat do you think?
I could see that being a concern for some people, and that worry may even prevent someone from participating in bereavement groups. But so much data supporting the efficacy of bereavement support groups makes it comfortable for me to assert the rewards outweigh the risk of dependency. Group facilitators are trained not to encourage codependency in their relations with bereaved children and families, and there is no outside contact aside from the group meeting once a week. I wear my heart on my sleeve, so lately I've been leaning on empirical data to support my thinking. In 2010 researchers at Arizona State University conducted a study that examined the long-term effects of the family bereavement program, essentially evaluating the outcomes participation in the programming had on children over 6 years on multiple measures of grief. As you would expect, the children experienced many positive outcomes as a result of participating. What's really interesting is researchers found due to weekly support skill building and many other multiple resilience resources, kids participating in bereavement groups experienced a reduction in problems of social connection. (Specifically the Social Detachment/Insecurity dimension). I translate all that into the idea that at bereavement support groups kids are being given weekly scaffolding of self-soothing skills, coping strategies, and a place to relax while learning all that. I'm not sure how it works for all groups, but I know at Ele's Place a family does get to decide when they are done, when they 'close'. And the door is open to return if they need to. Bereavement support groups are typically not designed as a place to dispense psychotherapy, and I'm thinking that if a child or family member has trouble with disconnection, the social workers on staff can arrange for individual counseling to help with the grief growth.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your question!