Healing Circles

This is Like Healing Circles
by Esme Rodehaver (age 9)

First you feel like a waterfall,
twisting and turning inside
and like you don’t know what to do.

Then you go to Healing Circles and
become like a plant
growing out of your sadness and misery.
You also feel like grass
helping the other children
grow out of their sadness.

Healing Circles provides grief support services to children, teens and their parents at any point in the process of dealing with a death. We believe that grief is a normal response to death for children and teens as well as adults. We honor the uniqueness of each individual in his or her responses and the griefwork they choose to do. We know that the duration and intensity of grief depends on many factors that are subject to change and cannot be prescribed. We believe that caring, acceptance and normalization assist in learning to live well with grief.

Young people may act out their grief because they do not have the verbal language to express their feelings. Their grades may drop; they may become angry or explosive; they may withdraw socially or they may regress. These natural responses are often unrecognized as signs of grief and leave children and teens confused and unable to cope effectively with their developmental changes.

Our program provides a safe and empowering environment for children, teens and their families to find the capacity and wisdom within themselves to integrate their grief into their lives at their own pace.

Healing Circles offers a variety of grief support services to children, teens, and their parents who reside in Boulder and Broomfield Counties. Support groups, anticipatory death consultations, and school consultations, presentations, trainings and debriefings support our communities to understand and manage the losses that our youth face. For more information, contact the Grief and Education Center at 303.604.5300 or griefcenter@hospicecareonline.org.

Support Groups

Before Healing Circles, I felt lost. Now I feel like I can be me again! — kids’ group member

Kids’ groups (ages 5-11) and teen groups (ages 12-18) are open-ended and meet bi-weekly in Boulder and Longmont. All children and a parent, live-in adult family member or guardian must participate in a pre-group interview. Families are educated and supported through a concurrent parents’ group.

Children's groups consist of talking circles and unstructured time — allowing children to express their grief though the powerful language of play — using art, music, story telling and games. The parent and teen groups are structured as process groups. We offer support and education along with an experiential component to the teen group. Download our group brochure (PDF).

Healing with Horses

September 13 – November 1

8-week group for kids ages 10-14 who have experienced the death of someone important to them, or have a family member who is chronic or terminally ill. Through equine-assisted activities, as well as art and movement exercises, participants will connect with others who've had a similar experience, learn tools for expressing their feelings in a healthy way, and for coping with grief. $320 (scholarships available).

School Support

Schools are often primary support systems when children are going through losses. We provide school trainings (PDF) to help create knowledgeable environments in which children and teens can proceed to deal with their losses throughout their formative years. We are available to speak to classes, parents’ groups, school staff inservices, and to provide phone consultations on specific situations. School tips (PDF) for grieving children are distributed throughout the school districts at appropriate times of the year to support school staff in helping kids during challenging times. More information on working with children and teens who are grieving is available below.

Talking to Teens after an Accidental Death

The sudden death of a peer can be a tragic event for a teen. Teens are naturally exploring their expectations regarding mortality/immortality, control, and whether or not the world is a safe place. When a peer dies, teens are forced to confront these issues, and many others, head on. With limited life experience and emerging skills for coping with overwhelming feelings, the sudden death of a peer can be confusing and disorienting for a teen.

In the shock after a sudden death, your teen might:

Not have words to describe how they are experiencing the loss.
Want time alone.
Want to be with his or her friends, even to a degree that might seem excessive to the adults in his or her life.
Act like nothing has happened.
Regress to a younger way of acting. He or she may want to spend more time with parents or insist on knowing where parents are at all times, may not want to go to school, may pick fights with siblings.
Cry and display other expressions of sadness, or have outbursts of anger and rage.
Be afraid to drive or ride in a car.
Have changes in appetite or sleep habits.
Engage in excessive risk-taking behaviors.
Want to memorialize the peer who died.

You can help your teen by:

Holding his or her experience with compassion and gentleness. This is may be a very confusing time for your teen.
Making yourself available to your teen — however, don’t try to force a conversation about the death. Sometimes just spending time together, playing basketball or cooking, is exactly enough.
Acknowledging the tragedy and validating any expressions of grief your teen is experiencing.
Relaxing your expectations for performance — schoolwork, chores, sports activities.
Being aware of any destructive or self-harming behaviors and offer supportive ways to express grief in a healthier way.
Communicating with school counselors and teachers if you have concerns about behaviors that seem extreme.
Assisting him or her in accessing community grief resources.

School Handouts

“A child old enough to love is old enough to grieve.”
Dr. Alan Wolfelt