Helping System Involved Youth (SIY) & Caregivers Understand Their Unique Grieving Style

Wendy Kessler, MSW, FT

Training Description

Grief is a natural response to loss - death losses as well as non-death losses. While grief is the most universal experience, how each individual system involved youth or caregiver processes loss and feels supported is highly unique. This training will explain four primary grieving styles, explore complications that arise when grieving styles are unacknowledged, highlight best practices for providing support for system involved youth or their caregiver with each unique style, and help participants understand their own personal style. Participants in this training will be informed through presenter instruction, case study review, self-reflection, learning activities, breakout rooms, guided discussion, and questions & answers.

Learning Objectives

● Identify 4 primary grieving styles.

● Identify at least 1 best practice for supporting SIY or their caregiver with each of the 4 primary grieving styles.

● Apply 1 tool for identifying grieving styles with SIY and/or their caregivers.

Agenda

1:00 - 1:15pm  Welcome

● Instructions

● Introductions

1:15 - 2:00pm  Grief is Universal & Unique

● Universality of Grief

● Uniqueness of Grief

● Grief 101

● 4 Primary Grieving Styles (Intuitive, Instrumental, Blended, Dissonant)

● Questions & Answers

2:00 - 2:20pm  Learning Activity: Assessing your Grieving Style with Grief Pattern Inventory

● Participants Complete Self-Report Inventory

● Grief Pattern Inventory Scoring & Analysis

● Place grieving style in chat (voluntary)

2:20 - 2:35pm  Breakout Room Discussion - Personal Grieving Style

● What is your grieving style

● What surprised you?

● What was validating?

2:35 - 2:45pm  Main Room Recap

● How can you utilize this information and/or tool in your supportive work with system involved youth & caregivers?

2:45 - 3:00pm  BREAK (CE hours will not be offered for this time)

3:00 - 3:20pm  Practical Ways to Support Each Grieving Style

●Intuitive

●Instrumental

●Blended

●Dissonant

3:20 - 3:30pm  Attachment Theory & Dual Process Model of Coping & Grieving Styles

●Overlap of these models helps us choose best supportive strategies for grieving system involved youth or their caregivers

●Questions & Answers

3:30 - 4:10pm  Grieving Styles Case Studies

● Application Exercise: participants identify Grieving Styles represented in each scenario

  ○ Case Studies read as a group. Each scenario demonstrates examples of various Grieving Styles

  ○ Participants, with guidance from trainer, will analyze each scenario to identify grieving styles represented

  ○ Discussion will also include what strategies to select to support each style

4:10 - 4:30pm  Learning Activity: Grieving Styles Grid

● Mapping your grieving style with influence of personality, temperament, attachment style & culture

● Participants will complete assessment tool

● Reveal assessment results

● Guided Discussion

4:30 - 4:45pm  Grieving Style is Essential to offer Effective Care

● Intentional care

● Choosing appropriate modalities

● Build from system involved youth or caregiver strengths

● Questions & Answers

4:45 - 5:00pm  Closing

● Review

● Wrap Up

Meet Our Trainer

Wendy Kessler, MSW, FT is a Grief Specialist. She is credentialed as a Fellow in Thanatology (the study of death, dying, and bereavement) by the Association of Death Education and Counseling, and a Certified Mental Health First Aid Instructor. Wendy worked as hospice Bereavement Specialist from 2017-2022 – offering grief care to patients’ loved ones, hospice staff, and community partners. Through hospice work she recognized a gap in grief education for helping

professionals, and a need for better understanding and support for grievers. As a result, she left corporate hospice care and launched Grief Guide Consulting, LLC in 2022. Her private practice grief services include individual counseling, support group facilitation, group education, and consulting. She believes that grief is not a problem to be fixed. It is a journey that we can learn to navigate, and when the path is unfamiliar or uncertain it can help to have a guide. You can

learn more about Wendy or contact her at her website: www.griefguideconsulting.com.

This course meets the qualifications for (3.75) BBS CE hours for LCSWs, LMFTs, LPCCs, and LEPs as required by the California Board of Behavioral Sciences & is provided by Fred Finch Youth Center, CAMFT Provider #045295.