Children’s Grief Awareness Day is November 21, 2019

Children’s Grief Awareness Day is a national campaign observed every third Thursday in November to highlight the needs of grieving children and the importance of providing support for them. Established in 2008, Children’s Grief Awareness Day’s mission is to help grieving children feel less alone and more supported through changing the culture surrounding children and grief. Additionally, to raise awareness of the impact the death of loved one has in the life of a child.

Statistics show, 1 in 20 children will lose a parent before the age of 18, this number does not include other losses such as the death of a sibling, grandparent, aunt, uncle or friend. Grieving children often feel like their struggles are invisible to those around them. These children need advocates, letting all know that the death of someone close is the beginning of many weeks, months and years of finding ways to go on without that special person in their lives, with that person-shaped hole in their hearts.

Grieving children often feel alone, different from their peers, and not understood. Every school and every community has children who have experienced some type of loss. Children often keep their loss and experience to themselves, fearing peers will not understand and not wanting to be different. These children can be helped to not feel so alone. Children and adults together can show their support for grieving children and show their awareness of what grieving children might be going through by participating in Children’s Grief Awareness Day.

On Thursday November 21^st we set aside time to highlight our support for grieving children and the great work we are doing here at Faith Presbyterian Hospice. Through our Child & Family Bereavement Center, we support children and their families most specifically through our Faith Kids monthly peer support group and our bi-annual grief camp called Camp Faith. Additionally, we offer support to all families on our hospice service who have children effected by the loss or impending loss of a loved one.  With services open to the community as well, we seek to be a premier provider of grief support for children and families throughout the DFW.