When Kids Are Grieving: Addressing Grief and Loss in School

"Burns provides an excellent, user-friendly guide to help school personnel navigate the tricky waters of children′s grief. This is a welcome resource for school professionals."
―Steve Hoff, Licensed Psychologist
Great Barrington, MA

"The author′s sensitivity and understanding of cultural variations in reaction to loss provide a much needed perspective to this important topic."
―Heta-Maria Miller, Associate Professor of Educational Psychology
The College of Saint Rose

Help students deal with grief and loss in appropriate, healthy ways.

Most students experience some form of loss in their lives, and the resulting grief can profoundly affect their academic performance, emotional stability, and social interactions. Serving both as a resource and workbook, this reader-friendly primer helps educators and school counselors understand and respond to the extraordinary challenges that children and adolescents may face when dealing with loss and grief.

Featuring helpful charts, quotes, activities, case studies, reproducible handouts, and resources from national organizations, this sourcebook offers strategies to help students affected by divorce; death of a parent, relative, friend, or pet; violence; chronic illness; and more. The author examines grief experiences at different developmental levels and illustrates how to:

• Respond appropriately to expressions of grief that are unique to children and adolescents
• Help students handle emotions associated with loss
• Promote communication and facilitate effective interventions
• Determine when to refer a child to a specialist
• Respect cultural attitudes toward loss and grief

This resource underscores the importance of understanding how children experience grief and loss and helps educators assist in ways that promote students′ emotional health and recovery.

Donna Burns is an educational psychologist who specializes in developmental psychology with an emphasis on child and adolescent development, diversity, and issues in grief and loss. She has designed and taught undergraduate and graduate level courses on death and dying and conducts seminars and workshops for school districts and non-profit organizations. She has presented papers on various aspects of grief and loss at local, regional, and national conferences and has created a conceptual framework for understanding grief reactions. She coordinates and oversees the children’s program for the annual New York State Police Survivor’s Tribute weekend; has provided support to bereaved military family members; and has conducted training on Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) for firefighters.  Burns is a member of the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP), the Association for Death Education and Counseling (ADEC), and the American Academy of Bereavement (AAB), where she completed an advanced bereavement facilitator training program.