By Leila Salisbury 

November has been designated as Grieving Children and Families Month, a time to highlight the data points showing that grief and loss are at the heart of the most under recognized and under addressed population health crisis for our children in Kentucky.

  • 1 in 9 children in Kentucky will experience the death of a parent or sibling by the age of 18. 
  • These bereaved children are more likely to experience Substance Use Disorder later in life, are at greater risk of psychiatric disorders, often have disrupted educational trajectories and are exponentially more likely to be involved with the justice system.
  • And of the rising number of young people who die by suicide, 25% of them will have been bereaved earlier in life.

Thanks to the diligent work of Bloom Kentucky and others, those who work with children are now familiar with the ACEs, or Adverse Childhood Experiences. Death loss, violence, suicide, parental separations (often due to incarceration), and struggles with substance use in the home are all significant drivers for unhealthy outcomes for children with these experiences, especially when they are compounded. 

The Role of PCEs in Healing

The good news, however, is that new research indicates that these ACEs can be mitigated with Positive Childhood Experiences, or PCEs. These include: the ability to talk with family about feelings; the sense that family is supportive during difficult times; feeling a sense of belonging in school; feeling supported by friends; and having at least two non-parent adults who genuinely care. 

The positive impact of these PCEs can be significant, so the Kentucky Center for Grieving Children and Families (KCGCF) designs its school- and community-based programs and educational tools are designed with these healing principles in mind. Every day we engage in the work of fostering peer connection, creating supportive care in school settings, and educating both families and professionals on how to have the hard but very needed conversations around grief and loss.

Tools to Support Grieving Children

To mark Grieving Children and Families Month, the KCGCF has designed a user-friendly toolkit for both families and professionals. Topics include how to talk to children about death, grief responses and support approaches for children ages 0-5 (a particularly misunderstood part of grief care), and special considerations for children who have experienced substance use losses. 

This toolkit also highlights the little-known SSA Child Survivor’s Benefit, a Social Security program for children under age 18 whose working parents have died.

  • Fewer than 50% of parentally bereaved children receive this benefit, largely because many surviving parents or caregivers don’t know of the program or have trouble accessing it.
  • The average payment per child for Kentucky is $1000, which can be transformative for a family struggling with  financial stability after a death loss.
  • Professionals and anyone working with children and families are invited to help spread the word about this key program that can help keep children on a healthy trajectory, even after a parent’s death, as it provides the funds to pay for housing, healthcare, childcare, and needed mental health supports.
  • For more information, visit https://www.ssa.gov/survivor.

Reshaping the Trajectory

As a state, we are still in the early days of our work of developing the systems and supports that our children with grief and loss desperately need to thrive over their lifetimes, but the good news is that this work has begun. 

We can bring together individuals from all parts of the state and all areas of our child-focused systems to create wraparound services, grief-sensitive environments for both children and their families, and new standards of care that allows these children not only to grieve but also to grow and flourish. 

We can and we must do these things for the future of the Commonwealth, and I invite you to join us in these efforts.

Learn more about our work at www.kcgcf.org, and contact me a lsalisbury@kcgcf.org to explore resources and partnerships.

Leila Salisbury is the executive director of The Kentucky Center for Grieving Children and Families (KCGCF), which she founded in 2020. She also serves on the Board of Directors of the National Alliance for Children’s Grief.