Children’s Grief Awareness Day is observed every year on the Thursday before Thanksgiving Day. We invite you to take this opportunity to learn more about how children grieve and find resources to help support grieving children in your family or community.

Grief affects more children than most of us realize, and children express their grief in many different ways. Being aware of how children of different ages experience grief can help you educate others in your community about what grieving children need.

One by one, we can create a safe and caring community where grieving children and their families can receive support and the hope that comes from knowing they are not alone.

To learn more about children’s grief, visit our Resources page.

To learn more about Children’s Grief Awareness Day, visit the website for the National Alliance for Grieving Children.

To find out how The Children’s Room can help your school, religious community or other group learn how to support the grieving children you work with, please contact our Director of Education & Training, Deborah Rivlin, at deborah@childrensroom.org.

Visit the Workshop Series page on our website for more information about workshops, registration and continuing education credits.

Presented by Deborah Rivlin, MA
Director of Education & Training.
Deborah has worked in the field of bereavement for 35 years.

For more information about workshops,trainings,and consultations contact:
Deborah@childrensroom.org or call 781-641-4741 x321

The NAGC’s 15th annual symposium took place in Boston this year! This symposium brought together professionals in the child bereavement field to share their best practices concerning programming, research, measurement, fundraising and other topics. This colorful photograph shows artwork created by attendees from our NAGC workshop, “Winter Always Turns to Spring.”

Over 300 representatives from child bereavement programs across the country came together in June to share and learn about the important issues facing the many grieving families we serve.

Staff from The Children’s Room presenting at the symposium included Laurie Moskowitz-Corrois, Deborah Rivlin, and Colleen Shannon.  They are pictured here with Phyllis Silverman (board member and internationally known author and bereavement researcher) as well as our Executive Director, Donna Smith Sharff. Our workshops were well attended and widely appreciated!

We shared an expressive arts activity we had used this spring in our groups as we explored different feelings. The discussion that unfolds is around growth (the petals), support (the stem), comfort (the leaves), and a child or teen being at the center of their own life, with the person who died always being a part of them.

As Laurie Moskowitz-Corrois explains, the metaphor “winter always turns into spring” can become a rich dialogue using the understanding of the seasons to deepen our awareness of the cycles of life and death and personal meaning making.”

Email info@childrensroom.org if you’d like to find out more about our workshop materials. For a detailed description of the expressive arts intervention on Spring Flowers, please click here.

The community support was simply amazing.  We would like to thank everyone who walked, donated, and sent words of encouragement.  And we would like to give special thanks to our Sol Circle walkers, the Arlington Hockey Club, and Robert’s Birthday party.

Donations can still be made online at www.firstgiving.com/childrensroom, or by mail.

This workshop is scheduled for Saturday, May 22 from 9:30am-4:30pm at our house in Arlington. For more information and registration for this and our other three workshops (each focused on a different age group), please visit our Spring-Summer Workshop Series page.

Our Parent Alumni Group is hosting a discussion group around this topic on Sunday, May 2, from 6:30-8:00 pm. Alumni parents, current parents, and waitlist parents are all welcome, as well as anyone interested in joining the discussion.

To attend, please RSVP by emailing info@childrensroom.org.
The group meets at The Children’s Room, 1210 Mass Ave, Arlington.

You will find information on this selection of camps on our Summer Programs page.

Topics may include anything from how to answer your children’s questions, to how to ask for help from family and friends.  Not only will you find sensitivity and kindness from this group, but you will also be meeting other parents who are struggling with the adjustment to the new reality of life without your loved ones.

We meet at the house in Arlington from 7:00-8:30 pm.

Please RSVP to kim@childrensroom.org to help us best prepare for the meeting. Light refreshments will be served. We apologize that we are not able to offer childcare at this time. We look forward to welcoming you to any or all of our drop-in discussions!

So often kids hold feelings of grief deep inside, and their grief is unrecognized and unacknowledged. These teens reach out to others with the message that breaking this silence is redemptive and healing.

The Teen Performance Troupe is an integral part of The Children’s Room outreach and education effort in our communities, so that our message of hope and compassion reaches many more children in diverse neighborhoods and schools. For many children whose families cannot access bereavement services, the teen troupe brings empathy and validation.

The troupe performance calendar includes dates for Lexington, Plymouth, and Newton schools, Tufts and BC, and a bereavement center in Northampton.  Please contact us if you would like to learn more about scheduling a performance, or read more about The Teen Performance Troupe.

We invite everyone to join us at the Belmont Hill School on June 6th for the final public performance of the season.