Utilizing Rituals to Activate Resilience & Help System-Involved Youth (SIY) Process & Adapt to Loss

Wendy Kessler, MSW, FT

Training Description

Since the beginning of civilization, people have practiced rituals to align their inner and outer experience, express intense emotions, and connect with their community during times of loss and transition. This training offers an educational presentation about the power of utilizing rituals as a strengths-based approach for activating the resilience of system-involved youth who are continually adapting to significant losses and unwanted changes, with a focus on ritual practices through the lens of culture and community. Participants will be informed through presenter instruction, a slide presentation, learning activities, guided discussion, and small group processing.

Learning Objectives

Participants will be able to:

● Explain grief as the natural and innate process that helps SIY adapt to all forms of loss.

● Identify four reasons that rituals are an effective strategy for helping SIY adapt to loss.

● Acquire and apply four types of personalized grief ritual practices which can help SIY adapt to loss.

Agenda

9:00 - 9:15am  Welcome & Introductions

9:15 - 9:50am  Loss & Grief

● Losses Experienced by SIY

● All Loss is Grieved

● Adapting to Loss

● Managing the Distress of Loss

● Grief is an Active Process; not a Passive Experience

● Questions

9:50 - 10:25am  Rituals

● History of Rituals

● Rituals & Grief

● Rituals & Culture

● Rituals & Belonging

● Rituals & Resilience

10:25 - 10:45am  Breakout Room Discussion

● Instructions for Breakout Rooms

● Pairs of participants will identify the rituals they practice related to grief and share how these rituals connect them to their culture, community, or resilience.

10:45 - 11:00am  Main Room Reflection & Sharing

11:00 - 11:15am  Break (CE hours will not be offered for this time)

11:15 - 11:50am  Designing Personal Grief Rituals

● Rituals that Facilitate Acceptance of Loss

● Rituals that Express Emotions of Grief

● Rituals that Create an Enduring Connection

● Rituals that Embrace a New Life

11:50am - 12pm  Creating a Personal Grief Ritual Worksheet & Instructions

12:00 - 12:30pm  Break Out Room Activity

● Instructions for Breakout Rooms

● Pairs will create a Grief Rituals for a youth they are supporting

12:30pm - 12:45pm  Main Room Reflection & Sharing

12:45pm - 1:00pm  Wrap-up & Closing

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.