Erica Sirrine – 2-Day Certification Course on Grief Counseling for Children & Adolescents: Developmentally-Appropriate Assessment and Treatment Strategies for Processing Grief

Outline

Critical Concepts for Treating Grieving Children & Adolescents

• Grief vs. mourning: A distinction
• Primary and secondary losses
• Parental and sibling loss
• Non-death losses experienced by kids
• Traditional grief models & kids
• Cognitive components of understanding grief in childhood
• Grief concepts & loss responses by developmental age and stage (using case examples)
• Distinctions between adult and youth responses to loss
• Explaining sensitive topics like suicide or homicide death to kids
• Magical thinking, guilt, and regret in childhood loss

Assessment of Grief & Loss in Children & Adolescents

• How children and adolescents understand and cope with death
• Six common questions following a death
• “Things we want adults to know about our grief”
• “De-code” the meanings of behaviors
• Factors that influence mourning and healing in kids
• Red flag behaviors
• Ethical considerations for working with kids

Normal vs. Abnormal Responses to Loss in Children and Adolescents

• Depression vs. bereavement: A DSM-5 distinction
• Differentiating between normal, complicated, prolonged, and traumatic grief in children

Traumatic Grief in Children & Adolescents

• Trauma exposure and traumatic loss
• Assessing traumatic grief
• Differentiating from normal bereavement
• Post-traumatic stress disorder
• Evidence-based interventions for treating traumatic grief

The Role of Attachment in Childhood Grief

• The role of the pre-death relationship
• Factors that influence continuing bonds
• Assessment and expression of child and adolescent continuing bonds after death
• Adaptive vs. maladaptive continuing bonds
• Grief Cave Intervention

Anticipatory Grief Counseling

• Talking to kids about terminal illness and death: Do’s and Don’ts
• Anticipatory grief interventions
• Explaining cancer to kids
• Explaining the dying process to kids
• Strategies to prepare kids for funerals & memorial services
• Strategies to prepare children to return to school after a death

Individual Interventions to Help Children Reconcile Losses & Discover Hope

• Bibliotherapy and journaling
• Therapeutic games and play
• Expressive arts interventions
• Poetry, writing, and music interventions
• Memorialization Rituals- Holidays and Significant Dates

School-Based and Group Interventions

• Factors for assessing and counseling kids and teens at schools
• Strategies for building rapport
• 6-week support group session outline
• Grief Camps
• Family Camps
• “Pamper Days”