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Training Programs
GOOD GRIEF PROGRAM TRAINING WORKSHOP OFFERINGS:
As you plan your 2003-2004 training calendar, remember that The Good Grief Program specializes in tailoring our workshops to fit your particular school's needs. As always, our staff at the Good Grief Program is available to assist your staff on site should a school or community crisis arise.
Workshops:
Workshop I: Good Grief in the Classroom: strategies for the classroom teacher to help students cope with death, divorce and difficult times
For teachers/staff - $750
Workshop II: Crisis Team Training (for Crisis Teams/ full day): complete crisis response plan for coping with a school community loss
For Crisis Teams - full day - $1500
Workshop III: The Special Needs Child: The Grief that Keeps Giving
For teachers/staf f- $750
Workshop IV: HELP! Strategies for Working with Parents of children with Special Needs that Work!
Two sessions for SPED Teams or full day- $1500
Workshop V: GOOD GRIEF! A KIDS' SUPPORT GROUP when bad things happen
Everything You Need to Know to Facilitate a School-based support group (for school counselors - upon request)
Workshop VI: The CIRCLE! A Comprehensive Family Support Program
Everything you need to know about the development of a comprehensive family support Program based on the CIRCLE
Workshop VII: Helping Children and Adolescents Cope in an Uncertain World
How to help children understand and feel safe in a world filled with talk of war, high terror alerts, and weapons of mass destruction
PTO PROGRAMS:
Parent Evening I: Helping Children Develop Resilience as They Cope with LIFE's stresses!
Welcoming a new baby, not making the soccer team, kids in the middle of divorce, when bodies change, putting Rover to sleep, grandpa's sick, etc.)
Parent Evening II: The Agonies and Ecstasies of Parenting Adolescents
Insights and Strategies for Promoting Resilience in Teens (as they hit the speed bumps that are a part of growing up)
Although no one would ever wish a child to suffer a loss, the Good Grief Program's premise is that in the crisis of loss lies an opportunity for developing and strengthening coping skills in all children. If young people can accomplish the four psychological tasks of understanding, grieving, commemorating and going on, then their grief can be "good grief", one that actually empowers them to cope with future losses. Although our training takes us into a variety of settings, our principal work is assisting schools; that is, training teachers and assisting teams in developing crisis protocols or plans of action before a loss occurs.
WORKSHOP I: HELPING STUDENTS FACE LOSS
This workshop trains teachers to be ready to assist students through a crisis involving loss rather than "bringing in counselors from the outside' to assist only those students having difficulty. In this workshop, we will work in an interactively with faculty to explore the four tasks using several anecdotes to make the learning pragmatic. Topics will include myths and inhibitors to the mourning process; how children understand death differently as they develop; how grief "looks" different in children; the power of school-based commemoration; how to identify those youngsters who are having difficulty "going on" and what to do about it. Although this workshop deals with the most difficult topic, death, teachers report enthusiastically that this workshop is truly about "life!"
WORKSHOP II: TRAINING A CRISIS TEAM
Although many schools can point to a crisis plan that is available for implementation at the time of crisis, several years of experience training teams suggest that most plans contain the crisis but stop short of assisting students and faculty with the psychological issues that confront them at the time of loss.
The crisis team training will address the how, what, when and why of school crisis management. The training is lively, interactive and provides the team with an opportunity to learn and interact together, a pre-requisite for working together in a stressful crisis. A sampling of the questions that we will address together:
What constitutes a "crisis"? How and when do you inform students of a death? In what ways are the concerns different if the death is anticipated, unanticipated, caused by suicide, AIDS, the result of a murder, an outcome of family violence, witnessed by other students? What do you do if the community has information that the family is unwilling to reveal? How do you identify which students and faculty are more at risk? How do you know if you are doing enough? How do you involve parents? What commemoration policy is appropriate, especially if the death was a suicide? How do you assist the school community to "go on"? How do you effectively deal with the media?
The issues are many and complex; the crisis action plan must address each issue completely and specifically. At the end of the training, you will have the completed Good Grief Crisis Protocol, a working document.
WORKSHOP III: The Child with Special Needs: THE GRIEF THAT KEEPS GIVING
This workshop is designed for teachers to offer insights into the psychological issues that affect the family of the child with special needs; in particular, the grief 'that keeps on giving' and gets stirred up at particular times in the developmental life of the child. Understanding the untapped 'grief' and learning strategies that work, especially when communicating with parents about the child's progress and needs, will be explored.
WORKSHOP IV: HELP! STRATEGIES FOR WORKING WITH PARENTS THAT WORK!
This workshop is designed for the specialists and classroom teachers who work principally with students with special needs, pre-K through 12. We will explore the tension between school and parents that often frustrates even the most patient professional and often interferes with the child's progress. Beneath the tension and anger may lie the parents' hidden, unresolved grief that is inevitable but unacknowledged in our culture.
Specific strategies for talking and working with parents of children with special needs will be offered. In Los Angeles schools, where this workshop was field tested, SPED teams are enthusiastic about their new skills, insights and strategies that have made their work with students with special needs and their parents rewarding again.
Workshop V: GOOD GRIEF! A KIDS' SUPPORT GROUP when bad things happen
Everything You Need to Know to Facilitate a School-based Support Group (for school counselors - upon request). In order for children to thrive academically, they need to feel supported as they face stressful life events such as family members' illnesses, death, and divorce. A School-based support group is a wonderful way of acknowledging loss, mitigating the isolation that children experience and providing a rich opportunity for expressing difficult feelings and offering peer support. This training can be tailored to your counseling staff's needs. The training includes a developmentally appropriate curriculum with activities.
Workshop VI: GOOD GRIEF! A COMPREHENSIUVE FAMILY SUPPORT PROGRAM
Like Workshop V, this workshop gives you all the skills needed to begin your own family support program replicating the CIRCLE. The CIRCLE supports children in developmentally appropriate aged groups, ages 5-8, 9-13 and a group for the adult family member who accompanies them. The training includes a curriculum for a 16-session program that encompasses the school year. The CIRCLE is based on the four psychological tasks of mourning as developed by the late Dr. Sandra Fox. You will learn how to recruit and fully train facilitators, how to organize each session, how to incorporate children's self-expression, such as writing, playing, singing, and art, into your sessions, and how to determine appropriate themes for the adult groups.
Workshop VII: HELPING CHILDREN and ADOLSCENTS COPE in an UNCERTAIN WORLD
Constantly hearing words like, "war", "weapons of mass destruction", "high terror alert", and "bioterrorism" can be confusing and unsettling for children. As we enter a new era in our country, children are being exposed to more and more thanks to the media and internet. Kids have different ways of understanding information based on where they are developmentally. How a 6 year old understands the words he/she is hearing versus how a 14 year old interprets the news is very different, leading us to wonder how we help our children feel safe. This workshop gives teachers the skills and strategies of how to best answer children's questions about these times, and how to settle their fears.
PTO Lecture I: PARENT/COMMUNITY EVENING: "Helping Our Children Cope with Stressful Life Events"
Of course, parents want to protect their children at all cost from the pain associated with loss, but wonder if that's even possible. Finding the language and learning what to anticipate is 'half the battle' when helping kids face divorce, moving, breaking up, not making the team, not getting into your first choice school, grandparents' illnesses, or the death of a pet or family member. The forum in which I discuss these normal developmental stressful life events is a lively dialogue. Parents are, at once, invested and passionate; the evening is upbeat, informative and fun. Many groups request a book signing for my book, TALKING WITH CHILDREN ABOUT LOSS, following the lecture.
PTO Lecture II: PARENT/COMMUNITY EVENING: "The Agonies and Ecstasies of parenting adolescents"
"Mom, get out of my life…but first, will you take me and Melissa to the mall?" This confusing but familiar line dramatically defines the ambivalent and often difficult struggle teens and their parents face during adolescence.
Maria Trozzi will explore these normal developmental stresses that adolescents face as they lose their childhood and move towards adulthood. Often, adolescents are required to cope with any number of situations, ranging from when Barry breaks up with Susan (even if they "went out" for only days….or hours!), being on the outside of the "in" group, not making the varsity soccer team, leaving the safety and familiarity of the middle school, not getting into their chosen college. At times, the problems seem overwhelming and the solutions seem out of reach for both teens and their parents.
How can parents and other caring adults help? When should they get involved? When is it interference? What techniques generally stop communication? What approaches work most of the time?
And, given the lives of dual working parents, hectic schedules for both parents and kids, and few if any opportunities for "family times", what "real life" strategies can adults employ that create a base of support for their teens during the many "crises" they face?
Finally, what specific tools can parents use that will ultimately have the greatest impact on their teens' lives: to assess the many risks that alcohol, drugs and sex present to our teens and assisting them to move beyond their peer group's influence to make safe choices.
Maria Trozzi combines insight, research findings, plus experience of parenting of two teens, and humor in her talk to parents and other adults who care about teens!
For more information or to obtain a schedule:
The Good Grief Program
1 Boston Medical Center Place, Mat 5
Boston, MA 02118
Phone: (617) 414-4005
Fax: (617) 414-7915
E-Mail: mtrozzi @bu.edu | 
