Compassion in Action: Activities for Finding Hope in Grief
This special page is your entry into the Highmark Caring Place Activities Manual, filled with hundreds of activities that have stood the test of time. At the bottom of this page are links to information and activities for Caring Place volunteers or school staff who are facilitating peer support groups for individuals who are grieving.
The bulk of the Manual is made up of the activities themselves, listed alphabetically. These are broken into six separate sections (in order to keep the file sizes manageable).
Preceding those sections, the Introduction section contains information on how to develop plans for your group, manage group dynamics, and understand the activity write-ups, along with two Tables of Contents:
- In the first set of contents, the activities are categorized by the Primary Task or "Reconciliation Need" (the main grief processing need of the group) which the activities primarily address.
- The second table breaks them down by Activity Type (the group’s format or style, such as games, question-related activities, group building, etc.).
You will find the age groups that the activities are most helpful for listed under each activity title (on the activity write-ups themselves, and in the listings in both Tables of Contents).
This approach allows you to quickly narrow down options, whether you’re addressing a specific emotional need, prefer a particular type of interaction, or are looking for activities for a certain age group.
The final two sections include a set of 24 Book-and-Activity Pairings, providing ideas for using activities along with specific books, as well as an Appendix made up of sheets that can be used with various activities throughout the manual.
Activities
We have captured activities that have been adapted and readapted, oftentimes where the original source is unknown. Although we aren’t able to credit all ideas back to their original sources, we thank all who have contributed to the creation of this compilation of activities whose purpose is to provide an outlet for grieving children and facilitate discussion within a peer support group.
The activities are presented with the ultimate goal of meeting the needs of each individual in the group. Facilitators select activities based on themes related to the grief spiral, the nature of the group and the individual children in the group.
