All of these events are losses in some sense, and as such they take a huge toll on the psyches of children. Ms. Trozzi's task is to counter these crises by providing training, consultation, and crisis intervention skills to adults who can help. Good Grief focuses on schools because teachers and other school personnel know the children and their history, and this enables them to provide the special understanding and sustained support needed in the aftermath of a loss. The Program involves everyone from students to guidance counselors to principals. The Good Grief Program operates on the premise that grief can be healthy if vented in a healthy way.
Children can bounce back after a loss, but only with help.
They need adults they can trust to be with them in a consistently safe place throughout the process. Grief counseling is relatively new, Ms. Trozzi says, because the need for it has been born of recent changes in our society. Death and dying seemed closer to people a hundred years ago. Then, people were generally waked in their own homes with extended family members present, and the mourning process was slow and gradual. Nowadays, families are physically dispersed, the funeral ritual is faster and more impersonal, and we're not accustomed to bereavement.