Olivia S House-A Grief And Loss Center For Children

Programs: Olivia's house facilitates healing through grief and loss education by providing no-cost services such as: educational and social support programs for grieving children and their caregivers, individual and family grief counseling referrals to qualified professionals, grief education programs for the schools and community, pre-death support services, pet loss support services, and a lending library containing resources on grief and loss. Social activities are also planned for the program alumni. In 2017, 43 weeks of educational and support programs were held. These programs are called 'hearts can heal' and 'little ones'. We also ran two "pilot programs" in 2017 to research the therapeutic qualities of table-top role playing games. A total of 72 participants were served through such programming. Our wings social program served approximately 190 participants. This wings program provides social activities for alumni of the grief and loss programs and their families. 7 wings activities were held throughout 2017. After many years of providing educational peer support programs designed to guide children in a healthy expression of their anger and pain, olivia's house found that without assessment for trauma and appropriate adjunctive therapy referrals, children often fail to use positive coping skills. Trauma referrals coupled with the educational peer support programs has proven to be more than effective. Olivia's house provides referral services to community and professional counseling organizations when necessary. When clients' needs are purely of a bereavement nature, the clinical team at olivia's house has begun offering limited individual support "in-house". In 2017, over 970 referrals were made and, in an effort to help off-set individual costs to the families, olivia's house provided financial assistance to 33 participants. In addition, olivia's house continues to grow its grief and loss lending library. New resources are added regularly as a result of the communities' continual use. In 2017, 450 different grief related resources, journals and workbooks were utilized. Olivia's house continues to be a "mentor center," providing guidance and wisdom for communities wishing to develop their own children's grief programming.