Please be advised that there is a Funeral Professionals Peer Support Zoom meeting at 8:00pm on Thursday, February 18, 2021 with guest speaker, Roy Ellis, Bereavement Coordinator with the Nova Scotia Health Authority. Roy’s session topic is “Kid Stuff: How Kids and Teens Grieve and How to Help”.

Register in advance for “Kid Stuff: How Kids and Teens Grieve and How to Help” by clicking on the following link. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email with a link to join the meeting.

Register By Clicking This Link

Remember to subscribe to the Nova Scotia Funeral Professionals Peer Support email list to receive regular updates about events, resources, and upcoming speakers.

This session will provide participants with some education about how children grieve through the developmental phases and further, how to practically help them and their families approach conversations about dying and loss. There will be plenty of time for conversation, so bring your ideas and your questions.

Kid Stuff: How Kids and Teens grieve and how to help.
There is a pervasive idea in our culture that kids are particularly sensitive to death. Therefore any intervention we make with children and teens around dying or grief can be fraught with risk. We often freeze up and become anxious about engaging kids about death and loss. We may ask ourselves as professionals, “how much can I talk to a child about death before I have crossed a boundary that belongs specifically to parent/child? What is appropriate to say to kids when they ask about the afterlife or nothingness, the dead body, or the strange overwhelming feelings of grief?”  
As it turns out, kids are 

BIO: Roy F. Ellis MDiv CSCP
Roy brings 30 years of practice working with grief, trauma, sudden loss. He provides frontline support for private, government and community organizations which have experienced an unexpected death, tragedy or workplace disaster. Before taking on the role of Bereavement Coordinator with the Nova Scotia Health Authority, Roy worked nearly a decade in the acute care mental health environment.
As a private consultant, Roy has helped organizations such as the Halifax Regional Police, DOD Military Family Resource Centre, Nova Scotia Department of Justice Victim Services, Newfoundland Labrador Construction Safety Association, Native Alcohol Drug Abuse Counselling Association of Nova Scotia, Mobile Outreach Street Health, Eastern College, VON, and Threads of Life, Canada.
Roy is co-developer and co-director of Camp Kedooopse, a grief camp for kids and teens at Brigadoon Village in the Annapolis Valley, Nova Scotia. Click This Link For Website
Learn more at Roy Ellis’s Website