Introduction to Grief Support Series | When One Grieves, We All Grieve: Family Systems-Informed Strategies for Grief Support

Introduction to Grief Support Series | When One Grieves, We All Grieve: Family Systems-Informed Strategies for Grief Support

This webinar is part of an ongoing series that will provide a foundation of introductory information for anyone working with or providing support to children, teens, and families who may be grieving. This series is not progressive; sessions can be viewed in any order.

When one member of a family is grieving, the entire system feels the ripple. Family systems theory reminds us that families don’t just contain grief—they express it, shape it, and sometimes even silence it across generations. For grief professionals, recognizing these dynamics opens the door to more holistic and sustainable healing.

This interactive, intermediate-level workshop explores strategies rooted in family systems theory. Through reflection, dialogue, and experiential activities, participants will learn to recognize family patterns, support healthier communication, explore intergenerational grief, foster flexibility in disrupted roles, and build rituals that honor culture and memory. They will leave with adaptable strategies for diverse settings and a renewed lens for seeing grief as a collective journey.

members only iconThis playback is available to active NACG members only.

Members must be logged into the member portal to access the playback. Not currently a member? Become a NACG member today! Your membership will provide access to free monthly webinars with CEs on current topics to support you in your work, discounts on educational events, access to all webinar playbacks, and more. To learn more and become a member to access this webinar for no additional cost, visit HERE →

 

Continuing Education (CE) credits are not available for webinar playbacks.
Target Audience: Students, interns, individuals entering the field of childhood bereavement, new staff members, new counselors, group facilitators, volunteers, anyone who wants to invest in their practice.
Instructional Level: Basic – This best describes a topic or issue that the prospective audience is encountering for the first time in a meaningful way.
Format: Live Interactive Webinar

 

Objectives:

After attending this webinar, participants will be able to:

  • Identify and describe common grief roles within families and their impact on the system.
  • Apply family systems–informed strategies to strengthen communication and boundaries in grieving families.
  • Facilitate rituals and practices that promote shared meaning-making across diverse cultural contexts.

 

Speaker Bios:

Annette Mendez is a certified grief educator through David Kessler and the Training & Curriculum Manager at Good Grief. Raised in Newark as a first-generation college graduate, she earned her B.A. in Human Development and Family Studies from Montclair State University and a Master’s Certification in Developmental Models for Autism Intervention. Annette is also a Certified Child Development Specialist, with experience as an educator and as Special Services/Mental Health Coordinator for Head Start programs in Morris County. She brings both professional expertise and lived experience to her work with grieving families.

Ariana Locascio is the Senior Family Services Manager at Good Grief. She has experience in hospital, mental health, and nonprofit settings, including work as a Child Life Specialist and Case Manager. A former volunteer facilitator at Good Grief, she joined the staff in 2021. In her current role, she orients new families, facilitates groups, and supervises staff, serving as the first point of contact for families beginning their grief journey. Ariana’s passion is helping others and building supportive spaces where healing is possible.

 

Brothers in Grief: The Hidden Toll of Gun Violence on Black Boys and Their Schools

The webinar will introduce and illustrate the main findings from my new book, Brothers in Grief: The Hidden Toll of Gun Violence on Black Boys and Their Schools.

Brothers in Grief spotlights the neglected aftermath of neighborhood gun violence and its consequences for racial and educational equity. Drawing on two years of school-based ethnography and more than five years of digital ethnography at a single-sex charter school in Philadelphia, sociologist Nora Gross examines how Black teen boys manage their grief after losing friends to gun violence and how school leaders and teachers balance their educational mission with often incomplete understandings of students’ emotions. The book conceptualizes the progression of institutional responses to student grief as a set of stages: the easy hard, hard hard, and hidden hard. In the aftermath of multiple student murders, the school initially recognizes the need for communal outlets for student grief, but soon the urgency of educating Black boys deemed ‘already behind’ takes priority. Relying on myths of Black resilience and male stoicism, the school ushers students back to ‘business as usual.’ Despite the adults’ best intentions, these decisions fail to mitigate the effects of peer loss on students’ social and educational trajectories. Although students’ persistent, unacknowledged grief is narrated constantly in online peer-driven social media spaces, it remains hidden from the adults making decisions about their education. Forcing students’ grief into hiding produces long-term social injuries for some students. Brothers in Grief concludes with a discussion of what can be learned from other youth and school responses to gun violence and proposes that schools could play a role in helping youth translate their collective grief into productive forms of grievance and action.

 

 

Continuing Education (CE) credits are not available for webinar playbacks.
Target Audience: Counselors, Social workers, Bereavement support professionals, school professionals
Instructional Level: Basic – This best describes a topic or issue that the prospective audience is encountering for the first time in a meaningful way
Format: Live Interactive Webinar

 

Objectives:

After attending this webinar, participants will be able to:

  • Recognize and acknowledge the role of grief among Black boys in contexts of high levels of neighborhood youth gun violence.
  • Consider the role the schools can play in supporting grieving youth.
  • Consider how opportunities for activism, service, and other community efforts could play a role in youths’ healing.

 

Speaker Bio:

Nora Gross, PhD, is a sociologist of youth, race, and education and a documentary filmmaker. She is Assistant Professor of Education at Barnard College, Columbia University and received her PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in Sociology and Education. Nora uses qualitative, multimodal, and participatory methods to understand the ways youth develop and protect their inner lives in the face of external constraints. She has published on issues related to racialized masculinity for both Black and white boys, grief and loss, political polarization in schools, teens’ social media use, youth resistance and emotional solidarity, and school supports for vulnerable youth. She has also produced several documentary films focusing on the lives of Black boys and men. Nora is the author of the ethnographic book, Brothers in Grief: The Hidden Toll of Gun Violence on Black Boys and Their Schools (University of Chicago Press, 2024), as well as co-editor of Care-Based Methodologies: Reimagining Qualitative Research with Youth in US Schools (Bloomsbury Academic, 2022).

 

New York Life Foundation logo

Supported by the philanthropic investment
of the New York Life Foundation.