Being a Lighthouse on the Shore of the Stormy Sea of Grief: Supporting Loss-Affected Youth
Format
Individual Presentation
First Presenter's Institution
The University of North Carolina at Pembroke (UNCP)
First Presenter’s Email Address
gary.mauk@uncp.edu
First Presenter's Brief Biography
Dr. Gary W. Mauk is a professor in the Department of Counseling in the School of Education at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke (UNCP) and a Nationally Certified School Psychologist (NCSP), who has worked at the K–12 level as a school psychologist. His teaching, research, and consultation interests include promotion of healthy child/adolescent psychosocial development and mental health and loss and grief issues among school-age youth.
Second Presenter's Institution
Bridge Builders Counseling
Second Presenter’s Email Address
bruce.garris@yahoo.com
Second Presenter's Brief Biography
M. Bruce Garris, M.A.Ed., LCMHCS, NCC, began a second career as an individual, group, and family therapist after 15-year career as a national-level trainer, Program and Executive Director with the YMCA in several cities across the country. Bruce is currently a therapist at Bridge Builders Counseling in Wilmington, NC, and specializes in anxiety/OCD, depression, grief/loss/trauma, clinical mental health (borderline personality, bipolar disorder), and family/couples counseling. He is also an adjunct instructor at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke (UNCP) and conducts workshops nationally on the “Skill of Happiness.”
Location
Session Five Breakouts
Strand #1
Heart: Social & Emotional Skills
Strand #2
Health: Mental & Physical Health
Relevance
This presentation meets the topical criteria for the conference strands of both SOCIAL & EMOTIONAL SKILLS and MENTAL & PHYSICAL HEALTH, because it will (1) make educators and other youth workers aware of (a) various personally significant losses and associated grief responses that loss-affected youth experience and (b) supportive activities/interventions to promote their mental health and well-being, and (2) provide educators and other youth workers with information and resources to validate, support, and empower youth to process and psychologically accommodate the various losses they experience along their life journeys.
Brief Program Description
As children and adolescents journey through life, they experience personally significant losses and associated grief that can negatively impact their physical/mental health, optimal development, and learning. Applying a broad-based perspective of loss, this presentation will acquaint educators/youth workers with (a) loss-related constructs and events, (b) potential physical, intellectual, emotional, and social effects of loss experiences, (c) supportive interventions, and (d) recommended print and Internet-based resources.
Summary
From the moment they are born, children experience a range of personally significant losses along their life journeys, the attendant grief of which they experience and convey into various life contexts (e.g., home, school, community).
A child’s or adolescent’s grief over a personally significant loss can stem from many causes other than a death (e.g., experiencing parental separation, divorce, illness, or imprisonment; moving to a new area and changing schools; dissolving an important friendship; being bullied or rejected by peers; breaking up with a romantic partner).
Youth who experience losses that result from different causes can manifest similar behavioral effects, including academic failure/apathy, acting out behaviors due to displaced anger, aggression, inappropriate risk-taking, running away, sexual promiscuity, and substance use. Also, children and adolescents carry their personal loss histories with them to school, and they (and the educators who work with them) may be unaware of the educational/psychosocial impact of various losses. According to the National Center for School Crisis and Bereavement, a youth’s reactions after a loss may include: (1) a decline in school performance; (2) difficulty mastering new academic material; (3) increased irritability, withdrawal, anxiety, and/or depression; (4) an increased probability of engaging in risk-taking behaviors (e.g., abuse of alcohol and other drugs, reckless driving, promiscuity, and suicidal ideation/attempts); and (5) focusing almost exclusively on the loss and neglecting almost everything else.
Caring adults who provide evidence-affirmed, timely, and effective support and assistance to loss-affected youth are lighthouses unto the darkness of their despair, safe harbors in their sea of grief, and advocates on their journeys from yesterday’s loss, through today’s grief, and toward tomorrow’s hope.
Evidence
With respect to effective interventions for loss-affected youth, validation of the loss, timely and genuine support, active listening and reflection, personal empowerment, and enduring compassion are paramount. Also, given the comfort levels of individual youths for specific activities through which to express their grief after a loss, it is important to have a variety of developmentally appropriate activities/interventions in which to engage children and adolescents. Accordingly, loss-related support groups, individual and group-based psychological (therapeutic) interventions, and visual creative arts (drawing, painting), literary-based (bibliotherapy, journaling), and music-based activities have demonstrated varying degrees of clinical and practical effectiveness with loss-affected youth.
Brown, J. A., & Jimerson, S. R. (Eds.). (2017). Supporting bereaved students at school. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Mauk, G. W. (2011). Loss-oriented support for students (LOSS): Companioning the journey from yesterday’s sorrow to tomorrow’s hope. The Clearing House: A Journal of Educational Strategies, Issues, and Ideas, 84(3), 104–108.
Mauk, G. W., & Sharpnack, J. D. (2006). Grief. In G. G. Bear and K. M. Minke (Eds.), Children's needs III: Development, prevention, and intervention (pp. 239–254). Bethesda, MD: National Association of School Psychologists.
Oosterhoff, B., Kaplow, J. B., & Layne, C. M. (2018). Links between bereavement due to sudden death and academic functioning: Results from a nationally representative sample of adolescents. School Psychology Quarterly, 33(3), 372–380.
Tillman, K. S., & Prazak, M. (2018). Kids supporting kids: A 10‐week small group curriculum for grief and loss in schools. Counseling and Psychotherapy Research, 18(4), 395–401.
Learning Objective 1
Explicate a broad-based perspective on personally significant losses in the lives of children and adolescents.
Learning Objective 2
Understand the developmental aspects and potential psychosocial impacts of various losses for K–12 youth.
Learning Objective 3
Discuss proactive post-loss support activities and intervention methods with loss-affected youth.
Keyword Descriptors
Loss, Grief, Children, Adolescents
Presentation Year
2022
Start Date
3-8-2022 10:15 AM
End Date
3-8-2022 11:30 AM
Recommended Citation
Mauk, Gary W. and Garris, M. Bruce, "Being a Lighthouse on the Shore of the Stormy Sea of Grief: Supporting Loss-Affected Youth" (2022). National Youth Advocacy and Resilience Conference. 54.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/nyar_savannah/2022/2022/54
Being a Lighthouse on the Shore of the Stormy Sea of Grief: Supporting Loss-Affected Youth
Session Five Breakouts
As children and adolescents journey through life, they experience personally significant losses and associated grief that can negatively impact their physical/mental health, optimal development, and learning. Applying a broad-based perspective of loss, this presentation will acquaint educators/youth workers with (a) loss-related constructs and events, (b) potential physical, intellectual, emotional, and social effects of loss experiences, (c) supportive interventions, and (d) recommended print and Internet-based resources.
