Full Course Description

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

Grief looks different in a child.

When a child loses someone, it’s a lifelong loss. Not only have they lost someone important, they often become isolated in their pain, confusion, and self-blame. Safety and security have been replaced by trauma and anxiety.

Their understanding of death, and responses to the grief that follows, are largely influenced by their developmental level, making their treatment much different from that of an adult.

Many clinicians are unprepared…a child’s unique grief leaving them struggling in session.

This live webinar featuring grief expert, author, and speaker Erica H. Sirrine, Ph.D., LCSW, FT provides you with the assessment and treatment strategies you need to help your most vulnerable clients.

Watch Dr. Sirrine and discover how you can:

Better evaluate for developmentally appropriate grief symptomology
Provide anticipatory grief support to children facing the death of a parent
Talk to kids about death and tough topics like suicide
Match strategies and interventions to developmental level for improved outcomes
Use therapeutic games, arts and activities to promote healing when talking is too difficult

Don’t miss this opportunity to get the skills you need to make a difference for your young clients.

Purchase today!

Program Information

Objectives

Analyze the cognitive components of understanding grief in childhood (i.e., irreversibility, non-functionality, causality, universality) and connect these concepts to a developmentally appropriate treatment approach.
Distinguish between different types of grief and recognize the implications of different types for treatment/intervention with children and adolescents.
Perform a clinical assessment to identify grief reactions, coping mechanisms, red flag behaviours, and factors that influence mourning in grieving children and adolescents.
Design individualized therapeutic interventions to help children and adolescents express and reconcile grief.
Analyze continuing attachment bonds after death and their relevance to clinical practice with bereaved children and adolescents.
Evaluate developmentally appropriate grief symptomology for children and adolescents and assess for clinical concerns.
Investigate how traumatic loss impacts young people and use trauma-informed interventions to reduce symptomology.
Utilize strategies for providing anticipatory grief support to children facing the death of a parent, family member, or friend.
Determine boundaries of professional competence and analyze ethical considerations for working with minors and families
Utilize developmentally appropriate techniques for working through regret, forgiveness, and reconciliation with children and adolescents
Assess factors that can influence the grief process, such as multicultural and spirituality considerations, nature and type of loss, and support system.
Construct concrete terms to increase effectiveness in grief work with children.

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 behaviours
Factors that influence mourning and healing in kids
Red flag behaviours
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 counselling kids and teens at schools
Strategies for building rapport
6-week support group session outline
Grief Camps
Family Camps
“Pamper Days”

Copyright : 27/01/2021

Module 3: Traumatic Grief, Continuing Bonds and Anticipatory Grief Counseling

Copyright : 27/01/2021

Suicidality and Suicide Loss in Children and Teens: Prevent Suicide and Restore Hope to Kids Grieving After Traumatic Loss

Suicide shatters worlds. And working with suicide is one of the most nerve-wracking and emotionally draining parts of your job.

Whether your client is a suicidal young person, or one who’s grieving in the aftermath of a loved one’s death by suicide, the weight of the situation can leave you feeling uncertain of your next steps and looking for answers …

How do I identify true suicidal intent and/or lethality?
How do I effectively work with kids and adolescents when their developmental levels vary drastically?
How do I restore hope when a loved one’s sudden, and sometimes violent, death has left a child or adolescent in an emotional freefall?

This recording will provide you with answers to your toughest questions and give you the tools you need to assess for suicide risk in kids and adolescents, effectively intervene in suicidal crisis, and help them cope with the feelings that can leave them at risk for suicide.

You’ll also learn how to apply play therapy interventions for children and teens whose worlds’ have been shattered following a loved ones’ death by suicide.

Along with guidance from our expert instructors, these evidence-based techniques will empower you to work with vulnerable young people experiencing traumatic grief more skillfully than ever before.

This recording will leave you feeling confident and capable in your ability to move young clients toward hope and healing!

Program Information

Objectives

Appraise risk factors and warning signs of suicidal behavior in children and adolescents to increase skills in risk assessment of suicidality.
Analyze protective factors that may reduce suicidal behavior in children and teens.
Apply play-based interventions to reduce suicidal thoughts and/or suicidal behaviors in children and teens.
Implement assessment tools that identify children and teens at highest risk for suicidality.
Determine the role of parents and caregivers in suicide risk assessment and prevention situations.
Articulate and apply play-based interventions to address childhood traumatic grief (CTG) for children and teens who are survivors of suicide loss.

Outline

Warning Signs For Children and Teens

Risk factors with or without a mental health diagnosis
Build compassion, reduce stigma for clinicians and parents
Determine roles in suicide risk assessment situations

Risk Assessment And Crisis Response

Implicit vs. explicit forms of expressions of suicidality
Listening, supportive, caring response
Introduction of the Columbia Suicide Severity Rating Scale – C-SSRS
Brief protocols for assessment and treatment

Creating The Treatment Plan

Protective factors: Adults vs Youth
Complicating factors for children and teens: dual diagnosis, negative life events
Handling a crisis of suicidal intent or ideation
- Clinician – Case examples of applying assessment protocol and action
- Parents & caregivers – Case examples of applying assessment protocol and action

Bringing The Prefrontal Cortex Back Online

Bottom-up treatment approach to calm, regulate and soothe
Match intervention to brain development
Develop brain-based treatment plan

Suicide Prevention

CBT Interventions & Play-based interventions adapted for ages 4-20
- Explore with symbols and/or words – “Puzzling” Warning Signs
- Thought-stopping, self-soothing: affirmations, mediation and mantras – Stop & Calm
- Key areas of prevention – Three Circles of Hope
- Skills to assist in coping, promoting social connection, increasing support, removing access to lethal means – Handy Circle
- Caring Contacts, keeping connected – Hope Notes & Post Cards
- Safety Planning – Bee-Safe, MY3 APP

Treatment of Traumatic Grief After Suicide Loss

Emotional regulation and containment
- Guided imagery to recreate scene of passing, create new reality
- Explore the changes since the loss
- Promote mastery & control in communication
Memorializing, Legacy, Imaginal Dialogue
- Continue bonds and relationships
- Memorialize in a safe and non-permanent manner
- Process feelings in imaginal dialogue
Story Telling and Social Action
- Express your story in the sandtray
- Hope for the future
- In Action! Integrating loss – Impacting Community

Supporting School Staff, Parents and Caregivers

Manage suicidal thoughts & behaviours
Caregiver assess risk
Address fears, worries and concerns
Hospitalization, after care, and reducing suicidal ideation
Resources for teachers, parents and caregivers