When Grief Comes to Court: Supporting bereaved court involved youth

Format

Individual Presentation

First Presenter's Institution

Kate's Club

First Presenter’s Email Address

lane.pease@katesclub.org

First Presenter's Brief Biography

Lane Pease Hendricks, MS, NCC, is the Director of Education and Innovative Programs at Kate’s Club, a bereavement organization for children, teens, their families and young adults. Lane has trained thousands of professionals on topics around bereaved youth and created Kate’s Club’s school-based support. Recently, Lane has led Kate’s Club’s initiative to support grieving youth in the juvenile justice court system. She co-authored We Come Together as One: Helping Families Grieve, Share, and Heal the Kate’s Club Way. Lane holds a MS in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from Mercer University.

Second Presenter's Institution

Kate's Club

Second Presenter’s Email Address

erin.richter@katesclub.org

Second Presenter's Brief Biography

Erin Wright, MA is an Outreach Coordinator and Translator for Kate’s Club a bereavement organization for children, teens, their families and young adults. She graduated from Marquette University with her B.A. in Psychology and Spanish and then earned her M.A. in Applied Linguistics from Universidad Antonio de Nebriha in Madrid, Spain. Erin has 10 years of experience in education and animal welfare nonprofits. She coordinated the work in the DeKalb Juvenile Court. She enjoys supporting Spanish speaking families at Kate’s Club.

Submitter

I am submitting this proposal as one of the presenter(s)

Location

Scarbrough 3

Strand #1

Health: Mental & Physical Health

Strand #2

Hands: Safety & Violence Prevention

Relevance

Up to 90% of youth involved in the Juvenile Court System have experienced the death of someone important to them. Grief reactions can lead to court involvement through delinquent behaviors. Group grief support promotes improved mental health through understanding grief reactions, sharing with each other, and learning healthy coping skills. Results of a pilot group showed decreased levels of depression and reduced risk of suicide ideation. Addressing grief reactions such as numbing through substance use and emotional upheaval leading to anger issues may ultimately decrease risky behavior that jeopardizes the youth’s safety and violent behavior that may put others at risk.

Brief Program Description

Youth who are court involved have higher rates of bereavement than the general population. Learn how grief impacts youth involved in the Juvenile Court. This session will focus on how bringing together court stakeholders and partnering with outside experts to provide grief support can decrease further court involvement and lead to positive outcomes.

Summary

Youth involved in the Juvenile Court System have higher rates of bereavement than the general population. Bereaved youth are at risk for school dropout, higher rates of substance use, and are at risk for mental health conditions, and other behaviors which may lead to court involvement. Though there have been grief support groups offered at youth detention centers, this initiative focuses on support to non-detained youth. In this session, presenters will discuss how bereavement impacts youth leading to court involvement due to delinquency. Presenters will discuss how the partnership of a local children’s bereavement center and Juvenile Court System brought together all court stake holders such as the district attorneys, public defenders, DFACS, CASA, and probation leading to a successful program. The first phase of the program consisted of educating court staff and then creating an identification process to ultimately provide grief support groups at the courthouse. The presenters will discuss how sessions were focused on the unique needs of the youth from a trauma centered approach. Grief group members learn about grief as a normal reaction to loss, share their stories, and most importantly learn adaptive coping skills. Providing targeted support can lead to better outcomes for youth with a goal of decreasing further court involvement that often leads to detention or prison.

Evidence

Clow, S., Olafson, E., Ford, J., Moser, M., Slivinsky, M., & Kaplow, J. (2023). Addressing grief reactions among incarcerated adolescents and young adults using trauma and grief component therapy. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, 15(Suppl 1). https://doi.org/10.1037/tra0001364

Dierkhising, C. B., Sanchez, J. A., & Gutierrez, L. (2019). “it changed my life”: Traumatic loss, Behavioral Health, and turning points among gang-involved and justice-involved youth. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 36(17–18), 8027–8049. https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260519847779

Ford, S. (2022). , Losing Someone Then Losing Yourself: Helping Juveniles in the Justice System Experiencing Grief With a Trauma-Informed Pretrial Diversion Program. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 112(197-213).

Saltzman, W. (2017). Trauma and grief component therapy for adolescents: A modular approach to treating traumatized and bereaved youth. Cambridge University Press.

We will also present the results the pre and post assessments used with group members.

Learning Objective 1

Identify how bereavement impacts youth involved with the Juvenile Justice System.

Learning Objective 2

Discuss 2 ways bringing together court stakeholders such as probation, DFACS, public defenders, district attorneys, and CASA with grief experts can positively impact youth involved in the Juvenile Court System.

Learning Objective 3

Identify 2 ways providing grief support groups at the courthouse and targeted to the population can lead to positive outcome

Keyword Descriptors

juvenile justice, grief, bereavement, mental health, delinquency

Presentation Year

2025

Start Date

3-3-2025 1:00 PM

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Mar 3rd, 1:00 PM

When Grief Comes to Court: Supporting bereaved court involved youth

Scarbrough 3

Youth who are court involved have higher rates of bereavement than the general population. Learn how grief impacts youth involved in the Juvenile Court. This session will focus on how bringing together court stakeholders and partnering with outside experts to provide grief support can decrease further court involvement and lead to positive outcomes.