Building stronger, more resilient school communities
Good Grief Groups builds on the work we have been doing since 2004 by equipping educators with training and curriculum to deliver grief support groups in the school setting. This program supports K-12 students who have experienced the death of an important person in their life – a parent or caregiver, sibling, grandparent or friend.
Students meet in small groups to explore topics including processing loss, developing healthy coping skills, self-advocacy, emotion regulation, and peer support.
Good Grief Groups meet once per week over a nine-week period, and can be delivered virtually or in person. The program includes a curriculum with facilitator scripts, group activities, and student worksheets.
Our Grief Support Groups are designed to meet these goals:
Increase educator competency and confidence to support grieving students
Reduce student social isolation and withdrawal
Increase student self-help seeking and self-advocacy behaviors
Improve student coping and other adaptive behaviors
Enhance student empathy and connectedness among peers
We transform classrooms
into grief-informed spaces
where students thrive
93%
of students reported learning words to describe their grief feelings
93%
reported learning how to be more empathic to others facing loss
90%
reported learning strategies to take care of themselves
95%
of educators trained would recommend the program to their students
86%
reported learning ways to seek support for themselves
“The Grief Groups program provides us with training and tools for school social workers and clinical staff. The training has equipped us with practical tools to run grief groups during school hours. It has also provided our team with the resources to be able to effectively lead grief groups in a virtual setting. This has been incredibly helpful given all of the loss and grief our students continue to experience.”
Administrator, KIPP New Jersey Charter Schools
“Thank you so much for this wonderful training! Discussing death and dying with children is not always the most comfortable conversation. The information you shared helped me feel a lot more comfortable with the idea of facilitating a group in the near future!”
School Social Worker
“Good Grief did an amazing job explaining the importance of allowing the students to grieve at their own pace.”
School Social Worker
