Coaliton to Support Grieving Students

The Coalition to Support Grieving Students empowers school communities throughout the United States to better support their grieving students by sharing industry endorsed resources that provide school staff with tools to be grief-sensitive for students and others experiencing loss.

AASA has joined other professional organizations that represent K-12 educators in an unified effort to address the lack of support for grieving students, forming The Coalition to Support Grieving Students. A primary objective of the Coalition is to effectively address and remedy the gap between an educator's desire and an educator's ability to help grieving students.

Childhood bereavement is all too common in the United States. Approximately one in 20 children will lose a parent by the time they turn 16; the vast majority of children experience a significant loss by the time they complete high school.

Schools play a critical role for children who have lost a loved one. Teachers and classmates responses to a student's grief can serve either as a source of support and stability during a difficult time, or an additional hurdle to surmount.

Yet, grieving children are often overlooked-both in society at large and schools in particular.

The Coalition's purpose is to

Elevate the national conversation around childhood grief
Encourage entire communities to take action to support grieving children in their midst
Recognize how and why schools have a critical role in addressing grief

The primary resource from the Coalition, a practitioner-oriented website provides practical, accessible information for classroom educators, principals, administrators, and student support personnel.

Listed below are a variety of resources to help better understand The Coalition to Support Grieving Students and our work regarding this initiative.

KidGrievingCoalition

The Coalition to Support Grieving Students Resources

The Coalition to Support Grieving Students has developed a set of resources that have been broadly approved by leading professional organizations to guide educators and other school personnel in supporting and caring for their grieving students.

Back-to-School During COVID-19 Pandemic: How Educators Can Support Grieving Students (August 2020)
Coalition to Support Grieving Students Website: This primary resource, a practitioner-oriented website, provides practical accessible information for classroom educators, principals, administrators, and students support personnel. It offers training, videos, electronic copies of guides produced for this project for users.
School communication with families after a student death (April 2019)
Talking to children about terrorist attacks and school and community shootings in the news resource. (March 2018)

Other Resources

The National Center for School Crisis & Bereavement offers COVID-19 Pandemic Resources for educators and parents. Now available, two taped webinars to help school mental health providers: "When school starts back: Helping students and you cope with crisis during a pandemic" and "Supporting students coping with grief and loss"(July 2020)
The National Center for School Crisis & Bereavement offers three PowerPoint training modules and other resources for teachers.
New York Life Foundation developed the Shared Grief Project, an inspirational website that hosts videos of well-known, highly respected celebrities including athletes, entertainers, and politicians who have personally experienced the loss of a loved one at an early age. The site also offers other third-party media materials, discussion guides as well as additional web-based grief support and resources. The Shared Grief Project envisions a world where no child has to suffer from grief in isolation.
The New York Life Foundation Bereavement Website
After a Loved One Dies: How Children Grieve: And How Parents and Other Adults Can Support Them : A resource for parents and other caregivers as they help children cope with their grief and fear following a death in the family.
Dr, Tom Demaria has developed a number of topical articles on bereavement for the Coalition to Support Grieving Students. Read these mini-articles here.