Grief camp reaches children suffering silently from a loss
Grief camp reaches children suffering silently from a loss
Hospice runs it with contributions
West Georgia Hospice in LaGrange, GA, decided eight years ago to answer the common questions clients and community members would ask about how to deal with children who've experienced a loss.
The hospice conducted a survey of school counselors and found that most had not received grief education, and the school nurses also weren't receiving grief training, says Cathy Wiggins, RN, CHPN, director of the hospice.
"Death and dying issues had not reached the counseling agenda of people in schools," Wiggins says. "One of the questions we asked counselors is ‘Would you recognize symptoms of grief in a child?'"
The counselors answered "No," so the hospice decided to offer basic grief education for counselors in the school system, teaching them that grief symptoms among children commonly include bedwetting, acting out in school, and multiple colds or absences due to illnesses, Wiggins recalls.
Following up the grief education for school teachers and counselors, the hospice has provided a workshop on art therapy for grief and how teachers can use drawings and other types of art forms to have children express their grief, Wiggins says.
"We had a specialist teach that in a day-long seminar, and we had sponsors for it," Wiggins notes. "We had about 50 participants, and we'll do something like that again this year."
Also, the hospice will send out a social worker and bereavement coordinator whenever there's a death in the school, she adds.
After forming this relationship with local schools, the hospice expanded on the collaboration by starting a summer grief camp for children, ages six to 16, Wiggins says.
School teachers, social workers, hospice staff, and other trained volunteers work at the camp, which has expanded from an overnight stay to three days and two nights for up to 60 children. The camp has served more than 350 children so far, and 90 volunteers work at the weekend camp each year, Wiggins says.
"It's about 4,500 volunteer hours, and we have everything donated, so no child has to pay for anything," Wiggins explains.
For example, use of the camp is donated by the local sheriff's department, which uses it for their drug awareness program, and all of the camp meals are donated, Wiggins says.
Children are referred through their schools, hospice clients, or the community in a five-county area, and they're signed up on a first-come, first-serve basis, although the camp hasn't had to turn anyone away because of lack of space yet, Wiggins says.
They have diverse backgrounds, but all are children who've experienced the loss of someone who was very important in their lives, Wiggins says.
Parents are given a booklet that explains what activities will take place at the camp, and the coordinator meets with parents to let them know more about the experience, Wiggins says.
Here's how the camp experience works:
* Children meet in groups: Typically, the children are afraid or nervous when they arrive at the camp because they have been told it's a grief camp, Wiggins says.
So counselors begin to divide the children into groups of eight to 10, based on their age, and these groups will continue to meet in four sessions over the course of the three days, Wiggins says.
"They meet with the group counselor or leader, and each one of those sessions deals with some type of loss," Wiggins says. "First of all, they talk about change, how change is an important part of their lives; then they talk about loss and feelings and memories."
Grief sessions are led by teachers and social workers trained in grief counseling.
"We teach them that it's okay to cry, and it's okay to talk to someone about your loss, and it's okay to be angry," Wiggins says. "So we teach them healthier ways to deal with anger."
* Grief counseling is followed by fun activities: Young adult volunteers lead the children in relay races in the evenings and storytelling in the cabins at night, Wiggins says.
"On Saturday, we have swimming and horseback riding," Wiggins says. "There are people who bring horses to the camp each year."
If a child is acting out or having a difficult time during either the grief sessions or group activities, then some adult will take the child aside for one-on-one time to walk and discuss what's bothering them, Wiggins says.
"Maybe they'll throw rocks in the lake and get the child to talk during that activity," Wiggins says.
* Arts and craft time also provides grief assistance: The camp has a "memory room" in which children can create a pillow as an expression of their memory of their loved one, Wiggins says.
The pillows have pictures of butterflies on the front, as the theme of the camp is the metamorphosis of the caterpillar to the butterfly, Wiggins adds.
"The idea is the child comes in apprehensive and is learning to deal with grief, and hopefully the child will leave as a butterfly, gaining relief with his or her feelings," Wiggins explains.
On the alternate side of the pillow children will draw a happy memory of their loved one.
"We have had everything from a picture of a child's dad's truck, showing how the dad helped the child change the gear, or a picture of a person who loves playing music on the guitar," Wiggins says.
Another memory craft involves creating collage in which the child cuts out magazine pictures that remind him or her of the deceased loved one, Wiggins says.
And one of the craft activities that Wiggins personally has used to remember someone in her own life is the creation of a memory bracelet.
"They can make a bracelet with a person's name on it, and the name is whatever they called that person, whether it's Paw-Paw, Daddy, Joe, Mama, whatever," Wiggins says. "It is extremely powerful to put that bracelet on."
Other therapeutic arts and crafts activities include making a mask of what the child is feeling that day or making a memory box for mementos of the deceased loved one, Wiggins says.
* Closing activities continue grief therapy: "On Sunday, the kids do a little presentation of what they liked, and then we have a memorial service that afternoon on the baseball field," Wiggins says.
"One activity is the child writes a card to the loved one, saying what the child wanted to say but never was able to," Wiggins says. "Then the coordinator calls out the child's name and the name of the child's loved one and ties the card to a balloon."
The child then lets the balloon go, Wiggins says.
"It's very impressive when the children let the balloons go," Wiggins adds.
However, that is not the grand finale of the weekend. One more surprise is in order for children as the hospice buys dormant butterflies, individually packaged in envelopes, with one butterfly going to each child, Wiggins says.
A Georgian company sells and ships the butterflies, and the hospice purchases them with donations, Wiggins adds.
These are kept in envelopes in the refrigerator until 45 minutes before the butterfly ceremony, and then they are released into the hot Georgian sky, where they'll hover momentarily near the children who released them and then fly into the sky, Wiggins says.
"We talk about metamorphosis, so this makes a nice transition," Wiggins says. "And the children where white t-shirts featuring a yellow caterpillar and smiley face."
All of these extra details are donated from churches and small donors, as are buckets of insect repellant and sunscreen for the camp children, Wiggins says.
Some children have contacted the hospice after the camp, demonstrating how important it was in their lives, Wiggins notes.
For example, one eight or nine-year-old child contacted the hospice a few weeks after the camp to ask for a balloon to give his grandmother so she could release it in memory of his grandfather who had died, she says.
"A year after our first camp, an 11-year-old boy called and asked to speak with the social worker who had been his counselor," Wiggins recalls. "The boy had lost his mother and was living with his grandmother, and while at the camp the counselor said that he could call the hospice any time he needed to talk with someone."
So the boy remembered this and a year later called to speak with the counselor because his grandmother had been taken to the hospital and was put on dialysis, and he feared she would die, Wiggins says.
"Also, school counselors tell us there's a huge difference in behavior among the children who come to the camp," Wiggins adds. "The camp has had the cooperation and collaboration of the school system, and that's really made it more successful."
Need More Information?
- Cathy Wiggins, RN, CHPN, Director, West Georgia Hospice, 1514 Vernon Road, LaGrange, GA 30240. Telephone: (706) 845-3905. Web Site: www.WGHS.org.
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