Yea! A field trip!

Yesterday we went on a field trip, two social workers, the other chaplain and me. We visited Tri-Cities Chaplaincy, which has a hospice program with an outpatient count of about 90, plus a 10-person in-patient house. They are a large agency with many programs, and we wanted particularly to hear about their grief groups.

The part of the tour that was entirely new to me (having been on the chaplaincy board and in several of their programs in a previous life—twenty years ago) was Cork’s Place. It is modeled on a house in Portland called the Dougy Center, a place that works with grieving children.

Cork’s Place is an average 1980 vintage rancher with a daylight basement. Adults who bring children to the grief group, which runs all during the school year, have a group of their own upstairs. Since the loss is often a parent, sometimes a grandparent or sibling, the person who brings the child usually has their own grief to cope with, in addition to that of the child’s.

The Dougy Center began in 1982 as a tribute to Dougy Turno, a 13 year old boy who died of an inoperable brain tumor. Its founder, Beverly Chappell, was a registered nurse who worked in the area of death and dying. She saw that most people were uncomfortable with the subject, and that hospitals, churches, and schools had very little to offer children in their grief. She began to educate herself on grieving by attending seminars and lectures given by Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, who wrote much about the until-then neglected subject.

Dougy wrote a letter to Dr. Kubler-Ross, asking why no one would talk to him about dying, even though he was facing his own death. Dr. Kubler-Ross corresponded with Dougy, and encouraged Beverly Chappell to meet him and his family when they came to the university hospital for treatment. Watching him, Beverly saw how compassionate he was with other children in the unit, and how they helped each other. She grew to have faith in children’s ability to process their own grief in the way they need to, as long as they have the freedom and safety to do so.

Children in the grief program at Cork’s Place begin each session by meeting in a downstairs room that is rimmed with stacks of pillows. On one side a huge stuffed gorilla sits, inviting a child to sit in its lap and wrap its arms around him. The group begins by going in a circle, each child stating their name, age, the name and relationship of the person they lost, and how they died. Then they go over the rules, of which there are just a few. After that, the children go to whatever room they want, or outside, to play and maybe talk.

The children range in age from three (I think that’s right) to eighteen, and they are divided into four age groups which meet on different nights. Well trained volunteers plus two staff people are there for the children at a one-to-two ratio of adults to the younger kids, a lower ratio for the older groups. The adults are specifically trained not to teach. That isn’t what they’re there for. They aren’t allowed to direct or guide, to criticize, or even to praise or affirm the children. The point is that the children don’t need anyone’s approval, and they don’t learn how to do what they need when they’re trying to please adults. The adults become more of a resource than anything, someone to listen, to help if asked, to play with if invited.

The social worker in charge of the program gave this example: if the child wants to bang on the piano, the adult might bang on it too, or might simply reflect, “You’re playing the piano.”

One room has all kinds of playthings, doll houses, dress-up clothes, toy kitchens, and, startlingly, a casket that the funeral home would use for a real infant. I asked about that, and the social worker told me that the youngest children like to climb into it and lie down. One ordered her and another adult to pick it up and carry it, and they had a mock funeral procession. Other children will put dolls or stuffed animals in it, and, of course, they often talk while they’re doing this.

Mourning, as Dr. Alan Wolfelt refers to it, is the work you do relating to your grief, the talking or writing about it, the visiting of places and memories, the paintings and sculpture, maybe even mud pies, that help you express what you’ve lost and what you’re feeling about it.

This is becoming too long, so I'll finish it tomorrow night. I hope it's interesting to you. It certainly was to me.