Workshops for Teachers and Others Who Work with Youth

How do you help grieving children, teens and families in your school?

You have a community of hundreds of children and many of them are living with grief.  Some of them have directly experienced the death of a parent or a sibling, while others have experienced the death of a grandparent or other close family member or friend.  Many, many more have been indirectly affected by a classmate’s experience.

Helping your community to support grieving children, teens and families has a lifelong impact.  We all remember how we were cared for when times were most difficult.  The tools and strategies we use to manage grief develop coping skills that last a lifetime.

Do you and your staff have tools and strategies?  What works?

For any adult that works with children and teens, grief can be difficult to address.  For over ten years, The Children’s Room has been helping children and families cope with grief.  The tools and strategies these families develop are applicable not only to grief, but also toward managing many other stresses facing a student or community.

The Children’s Room offers workshops that present practical information along with a warm, engaging and often humorous approach to a challenging topic.  These workshops can be tailored to your audience in a variety of ways to suit your community.

Sample Workshops for Educational Professionals
Helping Your School Community Respond to Loss
This training will help your school crisis team to develop a comprehensive plan to respond to a loss in the school community.  Working interactively, we will explore the tools needed to help students and faculty in difficult and stressful times.  We will share tested strategies, appropriate language, and other hands-on information to help you create a psychologically, emotionally, spiritually and physically safe environment for the entire school population in the wake of a loss in the school community.

It Takes a Village: Creating a Grief-Aware, Resilience-Promoting School Community
This workshop, designed for all teachers, administrators, school nurses, mental health professionals and other professionals working with children and adolescents, considers the reality of loss in the lives of children and teenagers.  Participants will learn how children and teens understand death, dying and loss from a developmental perspective, and will learn tools for fostering resiliency and life-long coping skills in the classroom and beyond.

“If we lost Uncle David, why don’t we just go find him?” – Strategies for Talking with Children about Death and Other Difficult Life Events
One of the most daunting tasks parents face is helping their children understand death and loss. This workshop gives developmental information about how young children understand loss and experience grief. Participants will receive practical tools for talking with children about death, illness, and other losses, and guidance for providing developmentally-appropriate support.   This workshop is also great for parent groups.

To arrange for a workshop in your school or community

Contact Colleen Shannon, Bereavment Program Coordinator, by phone (781) 641-4741 or by email cshannon@childrensroom.org.