Peer Support

At the Caring Place, grieving children discover that they are not alone. The children and adults help each other through peer support, getting to know and trust each other. At the Caring Place, grieving children are in a place where their thoughts and feelings are finally understood by the other kids around them, leading to hope and healing in the midst of their grief.

The Caring Place exists so children can know that they are not alone in their grief.

It is a safe place with caring people where children can share their feelings and memories, and hear the feelings and memories of others in non-judgmental acceptance.

It is a place where children and their families can see that what they are going through is normal, where they can know that hope and healing are possible.

"In my group there were other teens my age that also lost someone they loved. It felt comforting to know that everyone in the room could relate to what I was feeling. I wasn't afraid to talk about anything. Nobody was there to judge anyone else. Everyone was there to support each other. It was the one place where I could go to feel ‘normal’ and not like 'the girl whose dad died.'" — Crystal, 16

The Caring Place does not provide counseling or therapy. The Caring Place does not attempt to teach kids or adults the "correct" way to grieve. What it does provide is peer support — kids getting to know other kids their age who have gone through similar experiences.

Sometimes kids and teens talk or do activities about the person who died, or about their experiences of grief. At other times, they talk about things all kids talk about — school, the teams they're on, the hobbies they have — and do things just because they're fun, like play air hockey, share music, or eat pizza together.

As part of what they do in their age-specific groups, the children and teens use art, music, drama, storytelling and play as ways to express and understand their grief. They may share their experiences of living without a father or mother, sister or brother, hearing their own stories reflected from many diverse perspectives and points of view.

"It makes you feel good to get that all out, so you don't have to keep it all balled up inside you." — Rashawna, 15

In the groups with their peers, the kids get to know each other and trust each other, and learn that they're not alone in the thoughts and feelings and experiences they've had since the death. They hear their own stories coming from each other, being with peers who can understand and empathize with their experiences.

While the children meet in their own groups, the parents or guardians meet in a separate group to discuss the impact of the loved one's death on the family and on themselves.

Simply realizing that we're not alone in our experiences, and knowing that someone else truly understands us, and has felt the same way too, goes a very long way in helping us to find hope and healing in the midst of our grief.