COLDWATER, MI (WTVB) – The Community Health Center of Branch County’s Hospice Services will hold its annual children’s grief support program, Camp Courage, on Saturday, October 17th, 2015, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Reformation Lutheran Church, 430 W. Chicago Street in Coldwater, Michigan.
CHC Camp Courage is a free annual, day long, grief program for children between the ages of 6 and 14 and their adult family members who have experienced the death of a loved one. Grief counselors, hospice staff, and trained hospice volunteers help children share their stories and learn about how to cope with the pain of grief through educational activities, arts and crafts, storytelling, videos and games. A separate support group for adults helps parents and caregivers learn how to help their children work through the stages of grief while managing their own feelings of loss. Camp Courage is structured specifically to meet the needs of elementary and middle school-aged children.
A child’s experience of grief is very different from that of an adult. Their understanding of death and loss is directly related to their current developmental stage and it is heavily influenced by the reactions of those around them. Very young children may not understand that death is permanent and they may ask when their loved one is coming back from heaven. Older children often have many questions about death and how it occurred. They need honest information that is age appropriate in order to make sense of the changes in their lives. Teenagers look to their peers for support and how to find meaning when a loss has occurred. Most children cope with loss as they do with many other emotional experiences, through play.
Grieving children may also experience regressive behaviors (acting younger than they are) after a loss. Adults can help children by giving them permission to express how they feel and to encourage them to ask questions. It is also helpful to recognize that children often act out what they feel instead of having long conversations. Giving children factual information at their level of understanding prevents misunderstandings such as a child’s common belief that he or she did something that caused the loss to occur.
Many children who have come to Camp Courage have lost their parents. Others have lost siblings, grandparents, friends, neighbors, pets, and other loved ones to death. In addition to grieving the death of a loved one, children are also often coping with other significant losses such as divorce, moving to a new home, and changing schools. The camp gives them an opportunity to express how loss and change have impacted their lives.
All hospices provide bereavement services to survivors of hospice patients as part of the spectrum of hospice care. Camp Courage is one of four grief support programs that CHC Hospice provides to hospice survivors and the general public. The other programs are Passages adult grief support group; New Beginnings luncheons, and the annual memorial service.
Registration is Free and required to attend Camp Courage and the deadline is October 9th. To register for Camp Courage or for more information, contact CHC Hospice at (517) 279-5420.
