University of Virginia Health System

Grief Resources for Parents and Families

Websites for Parents

• Helping Yourself Heal When Your Child Dies
• Helping Yourself Heal When a Baby Dies
• National Grief Resources for Loss of a Child

Articles and Websites about "Children and Grief"

• Sibling Grief - from The Forum, Association for Death Education and Counseling (pdf) 
  Includes: Mode of Death and the Effects of Sibling Grief; Sibling Grief Through Childhood; Understanding Adolescent Sibling Bereavement; Losing a Sibling in Adulthood; Adult Sibling Loss: An Unexpected Journey; Using Nature-Based Rituals as an Intervention for Adult Surviving Siblings.
• Adolescents' Use of the Internet as a Modality of Grief Support - from The Forum, Association for Death Education and Counseling (pdf)
• Recommended Books About Death and Grief for Children and Adolescents  
• Should children be allowed to attend the funerals of parents and other relatives?
• Living With Loss: Bereaved swim against tide of grief (this general article on bereavement includes references to children's grief. From the Finding Our Way: Living with Dying in America article series.)
• Bar-Harris Children's Grief Center  

• My Grief Rights: Ten Healing Rights for Grieving Children
• The Healing Garden - a child grief webpage with interactive activities (plant seeds, watch them bloom) to help children deal with their grief and loss through creative expression and companion interaction.

• Several Articles on Grandparents' Grief - from The Forum, Association for Death Education and Counseling (pdf)
  Includes: Grandparents' Grief - Who Is Listening?; Grandparents' Grief - "Nipped in the Bud"; The Death of a Grandchild: A Complex Grief; My Nicky; For Bereaved Grandparents

• Various Articles on Use of the Internet to Facilitate Grief Support - from The Forum, Association for Death Education and counseling (pdf)
  Includes: The Functions of Web Memorials in Bereavement; Adolescents' Use of the Internet as a Modality for Grief Support; Coping with Loss in Chinese and North American "Ccyberspace": E-Temples and Virtual Cemetaries; Healing and the Internet; War in the 21st Century: The Internet as a Coping Device; War in the 21st Century: The Comfort of Email.

• Contact Chaplain Gordon Putnam (4-2477) for Parent Packets containing information and resources for children and parents with cancer.

National Public Radio--The End of Life: Exploring Death in America

• Text and Audio transcripts of All Things Considered and Morning Edition stories on End-of-Life Issues.
• Resources - for people with life-threatening diseases and their families and caregivers
• Bibliography - books and journal articles dealing with terminal illness, symptom management, bereavement, grief, and medical and social policy relating to the care of the terminally ill
• Readings - selections from novels and short stories, poems, religious rituals, clinical research, scripts for plays and television & radio programs, and private accounts

• Helping Yourself During the Holiday Season
• Including Your Absent Loved One In Holiday Celebrations
• Survival Strategies for the Holiday Season
• Three C's of Coping with the Holidays