The implications of developmental issues, cultural differences, and spiritual and religious diversity related to bereavement and mourning are highlighted. Besides coursework, the training fellows enrolled in the program complete a one-day field visit in a setting outside their current agency and a special field project that will enhance the practice, policy or research in their agency. They are also assigned a mentor who assists them in planning their special project. Alissa Sandler, one of the fellows, is a social work supervisor of pediatric ambulatory care services at New Jersey's Hackensack University Medical Center, where she works with families whose children have chronic illnesses. She also works with families who have experienced Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and those who have experienced pregnancy loss.
Fieldwork can be very isolating, especially when dealing with grief and bereavement.
Even one's colleagues don't want to talk about it. Another fellow, Barbara Golby, works at Elmhurst Hospital in Queens, where she is a social work coordinator at the pediatric immunology clinic, working with HIV-positive patients. Golby said that her original clinical interest was in parent-child relationships, especially in divorced families, and that, although she was always interested in issues of loss, she initially couldn't imagine herself working in a hospital with sick children and their sick parents. I want to pursue this area as a specialty. For her project, and with the help of her mentor Allen Levine from Cancer Care, she is developing a children's support group in the clinic since she firmly believes that one of the best ways to work with this population is through groups.