1. Counseling With Children in contemporary society
By Marissa Mahoney & Shelby Ferriere

2. Grief Counseling Loses are amplified
Grief counseling creates community for children

3. Grieving Children Death leads to secondary loss Angela 7 year old girl
Awareness of loss can give insight into grieving process
Angela 7 year old girl
Other subtle or less obvious losses give insight to the grieving process

4. Children’s Developmental Understanding of death
A child’s understanding of death changes as he or her develops
Piaget’s Developmental stages help MHC’s predict age appropriate responses to death
- Preoperational stage (2-7)
Reversibility
Concrete operations stage (7-12)
Prepositional operations (13-up)

5. Talking to Children About Death
Defining death to children
-using specific definitions
Common questions
Examples “Who will take care of me if you die too?”
“What is heaven?”
“Can I die if I go to sleep?”

6. Understanding the Nature of Children’s Bereavement
21st Century Influences
Three Categories in assessing a grieving child
Individual factors
Death related factors
Support system factors
Five factors known to increase complications of mourners
Sudden or traumatic death
Social stigma & shame
Multiple losses
Past relationship with the deceased
The grief process of the surviving parent or caretaker

7. Interventions for Individual Counseling
Responsibility of Mental Health Counselors
The goal is to allow safe expression of children’s grief responses in a respectful environment
Coping techniques
- Expression of feelings
- Projective play
- connecting to and maintaining memories
Five strategies of connection to a deceased parent
Techniques

8. Education Support group Education parents School system
The more consistency MHC’S can create the more solid and secure their world will become
Education parents
School system

10. Smiling Animals