Centering Compassion Series | Supporting Staff and Volunteers in Challenging Times

Join us for a meaningful session in our Centering Compassion Series, focused on Supporting Staff and Volunteers in Challenging Times. Executive Directors from four childhood bereavement organizations across the country will come together to share how they lead with compassion, transparency, and adaptability. Whether you’re supervising staff, coordinating volunteers, or shaping organizational culture, this panel offers honest reflection and practical ideas for supporting your team with empathy and intention—sustaining those who make the mission possible every day.

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Target Audience: Counselors, Social workers, Bereavement support 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

Centering Compassion Series:

Mourning in Conflict: Navigating Ethical and Value Clashes in Bereavement
Light on the Dark Side of the Street: Living Well in a Loss and Trauma World
Holding Space for Ourselves: Cultivating Self-Compassion in Grief Support Work
This webinar – Supporting Staff and Volunteers in Challenging Times

Speaker Bio:

Dr. Tina Barrett is the Executive Director and Co-founder of Tamarack Grief Resource Center in Montana. A licensed counselor, Barrett’s commitment to excellence in grief and trauma care is matched by her profound commitment to healthy organizations and setting teams up for success. Weaving stories from over 30 years of experiences as an Executive Director, Board Member, staff member, supervisor, supervisee, and volunteer, she is committed to strengths-oriented care and healthy, effective workplaces. Dr. Barrett’s workshops pull from her work in schools, hospitals, private practice, group homes, treatment centers, and nonprofits and the clients and colleagues she’s had the honor of working alongside. She serves on the Leadership Team for Project Tomorrow Montana, the Presidents’ Circle for the National Alliance for Children’s Grief (NACG), and the Advisory Board for the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS). Barrett received the Community Educator Award from the Association for Death Educators and Counselors (ADEC) in 2019. She is delighted and honored to be a part of the National Alliance for Children’s Grief.

Deirdra Flavin, MSc, CFRE, (moderator) is the Chief Executive Officer of the National Alliance for Children’s Grief (NACG), a nonprofit organization dedicated to raising awareness about the needs of children who are grieving and providing education and resources to those who support them. With over twenty years of experience in nonprofit leadership, marketing, and development, Deirdra’s career has centered on advancing social impact and fostering meaningful connections within communities. Deirdra joined the NACG in 2019 as the National Marketing and Development Director, and her work is focused on driving organizational growth, enhancing organizational recognition, and fostering collaboration, which has resulted in increased resources and support for the organization’s programs and initiatives. Before transitioning to the nonprofit sector, Deirdra held senior roles in marketing and sales, where she gained extensive experience in strategic planning, relationship management, and achieving measurable results. Her ability to translate corporate strategies into mission-driven successes has defined her work in the nonprofit world, where she blends business acumen with a deep commitment to creating meaningful change. A native of Cork, Ireland, Deirdra holds a Bachelor of Arts and a Masters Degree in Marketing Management from University College Cork. In 2021, she earned her Certified Fundraising Executive (CFRE) credential. Deirdra resides in Virginia with her husband and three children.

Annette R. March-Grier, RN., C.F.S.P., is a native Baltimorean, and Vice President of a family business; March Funeral Homes located in Maryland, Washington DC and Virginia. She is a registered nurse, a mortician and the visionary of Roberta’s House Inc., a non-profit Family Grief Support Center founded in 2007, by the March family in honor of their matriarch, Julia Roberta March. Annette is the President, and has lead the way for grief education and support for grieving children and families in Baltimore for more than 38 years. A teacher, counselor, trainer and leader, with her compassionate staff, provides a safe place for children and adults to heal and recover from the death of someone close. Roberta’s House provides trauma informed care and addresses grief as a public health service through education and over 15 peer support programs. Children, adults, and families suffering the loss or death of a loved one receive support and a safe place to heal and recover. To date Roberta’s House has provided support services to more than 10,000 children and adults and trained over 800 community volunteers that support their programs. Roberta’s House conducts grief support programs for individuals of all ages and types of death losses as well as professional workshops for the community. It is the first bereavement center to be founded by African Americans in the U.S. to address the inequities for people of color with grief and mental health resources. In January of 2021, March-Grier fundraised and successfully completed the construction of the first bereavement center in Baltimore Maryland to serve children and families. The center is located on the same landmark that her parents operated the funeral home from 1957-1980. The 22,000 square foot facility is a state of the art bereavement center that is one of a kind in the US to provide bereavement care and counseling for the underserved and people of color.

Annette is a recipient of numerous awards and achievements. She received the National Caring Award in October, 2016 which includes her induction into the Caring Hall of Fame located in the Frederick Douglas Museum on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. In addition, she was selected by CNN, the world leader in news, as one of the top ten CNN heroes, 2014 for changing the world.

Debbie Meyer, MNM, has an extensive background in leading nonprofits as the present executive director of Erin’s House for Grieving Children for the past 17 years. Debbie is a proud board member and current board president for the National Alliance for Children’s Grief (NACG).

Debbie is an adjunct lecturer in nonprofit courses for Huntington University, Purdue University, and Arizona State University. She holds a bachelor’s degree in business management from Indiana Wesleyan University and a master’s degree in nonprofit administration from the University of Central Florida. In her spare time, she loves to read, travel, shop, and cheer on Notre Dame football with her family.

Fun facts:

Erin’s House and Debbie are a featured chapter in American Spirit by Taya Kyle and Jim DeFelice, 2019 – Pages 164-172.
Debbie was also the marketing director for a winning Indianapolis 500 race car driver, Eddie Cheever.
Erin’s House was recently featured in the Peacock documentary “Here Come the Irish” with Coach Marcus Freeman, in August 2024.

Brennan Wood has served as the Executive Director of Dougy Center: The National Grief Center for Children & Families based in Portland, Oregon since 2015, where she has been on staff in various roles since 2004. Brennan’s professional background and expertise are grounded in fundraising, strategic planning, organizational development, and capacity building. She is the author of, A Kids Book About Grief and is a member of the National Advisory Council for the COVID Collaborative as well as the Advisory Council for Hidden Pain. She was the 2020 Light-a-Fire Award Extraordinary Executive Director and a 2022 Women of Influence Award recipient. Brennan is passionate about Dougy Center’s mission to provide grief support, resources, training, and community response to children, teens, young adults, and their families who are grieving before and after a death, and those who support them. Brennan walked through the doors of Dougy Center for the first time in 1987 when her mother, Doris, died three days after she had turned 12-years-old. Her experience in a peer support group at Dougy Center shaped her life and she has strived to provide the same opportunity that she had to other children and families who are grieving in her community, across the country, and around the world ever since. Under Brennan’s leadership, Oregon Business named Dougy Center as a “Best Nonprofit to Work For” for the past six years, and local CEOs voted Dougy Center as a “Most Admired Company” for the past four. Since becoming Executive Director, Brennan has championed Dougy Center’s commitment to equity and inclusion and has brought innovative partnerships, programs, and resources to the field of childhood bereavement. Brennan is committed to making the world a more grief-informed place where we all can acknowledge grief as a natural and normal response to loss that is interwoven into a sociocultural context.

The Future of Grief Camps: Themes and Standards in a Changing World

There are so many ways we are seeing shifts in how we support youth and families experiencing grief, from shifting camp models to creating more accessibility throughout a program. While there is so much power in how diverse bereavement camps have become, it can also feel important to come back together as a field to collectively share our foundation for these camps and how we plan to move forward as a field.

Join us for a panel discussion where professionals from the bereavement and camp fields come together to highlight important themes and standards for bereavement camps today and looking forward. Topics such as expanding the definition of wellbeing to actively working on creating equitable and inclusive camp spaces. The panel will share their thoughts around these important themes and more. We will also address the updated Bereavement Camp Standards of Practice as a practical tool for the bereavement and camp fields.

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: Counselors, Social workers, Bereavement support 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:

Investigate key themes in the bereavement camp field where shifts are being seen.
Inform bereavement professionals of the free Bereavement Camp Standards of Practice resource to help inform bereavement camp standards across the field.
Appraise minimum practices and standards to ensure a safer bereavement camp experience for participants.

Speaker Bios:

Kiri Meyer (Moderator and Panelist) is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) in Wisconsin, a Nationally Certified Counselor (NCC), and a Registered Yoga Teacher (RYT-200). Kiri has spent over a decade helping to support individuals and families of all ages through individual/family counseling and camp-based programs. Kiri supports camp and other non-profit programs by acting as a Mental Health Professional throughout the camp program or as needed for other programs. She has conducted trainings in the areas of trauma and bereavement throughout her professional career and is now part of the Eluna Camp Erin team helping to support professionals in the Camp Erin network.

Dr. Tina Barrett (Panelist) is the Executive Director/Co-founder of Tamarack Grief Resource Center in Montana. Since 1994, Barrett has specialized in family systems, strength-oriented and outdoor-based support following grief and trauma. Her doctoral research illuminated benefits of youth bereavement camps. Over the past 30 years, Barrett has focused on best practices of nature-based support with trauma survivors and family-systems. She has designed and directed various models of grief camps for youth, teens, women, families, and professionals in Montana and six other states including A Camp to Remember which she launched in 1997. She served on the Board of Directors for the National Alliance for Children’s Grief (NACG), and currently serves on the Leadership Team of Project Tomorrow Montana and the Advisory Board for Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors. Barrett received the Community Educator Award from Association for Death Educators and Counselors (ADEC) in 2019.

John Hamilton, MA, (Panelist) is a strategic leader in the camp and out-of-school time (OST) space. He currently serves as Chief Strategy Officer for the Alliance for Camp Health. John has a deep understanding of mental, emotional, and social health (MESH +) of youth and national program expansion. Prior to ACH he served as the national director for Camp HOPE America. John has an MA in Leadership and Cultural Justice, is the cofounder of the Outdoor Wellbeing Lab, and is a former executive director of a camp near Lake Tahoe.

Katie Hartley, LPC, has been a Licensed Professional Counselor since 1989 and has worked with children and youth her entire career. Her practice has included work with many populations, emphasizing developmental theory and non-verbal interactions utilizing the creative arts. Katie served as an adjunct professor at Drexel as well as internship supervisor for many years. She has worked in private practice, with school districts, developmental centers and created an arts center for therapeutic work. Katie’s current role at Penn Medicine is as a children’s bereavement coordinator and clinical director for Camp Erin (a weekend camp for grieving youth). She continues to use the creative arts and has completed MBSR training and uses mindfulness and meditation within her work often.

Brianne “Brie” Overton, FT, LPC, NCC, (Panelist) is the Chief Clinical Officer of Experience Camps, a national nonprofit that provides no-fee, clinically informed programs for kids who have experienced the death of a parent, sibling or primary caregiver – as well as resources and advocacy so all grieving children can live a life rich with possibility. Brie received her MA in Thanatology from Hood College, her M.Ed in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from University of Missouri – St. Louis, and is a doctoral candidate in counseling at the University of Missouri – St. Louis. She has spent 16 years in the field of thanatology providing grief education, support, counseling, death education, suicide prevention and intervention, and consultation.

Jason Stout, for more than two decades, has been helping youth and adults find their inner strength, form meaningful connections, and experience personal transformation through adventure challenge and time in nature. His passion for this work is rooted in the losses of his sister, grandmother, and father — all before Jason was 15 years old. He struggled to deal with these losses as a teen and adult, but he found purpose and healing after completing a 78-day Winter Wilderness Leadership Expedition. In honor of his dad and sister, Jason created a national wilderness program for at-risk and grieving teens, which was featured in Backpacker Magazine, The Denver Post, and the Associated Press. Jason is founder of Stoutreach LLC where he provides training, consultation, and facilitation to outdoor education, wilderness therapy, and gap year programs. In addition, he serves as an advisor to TAPS where he manages, develops, and facilitates a variety of programming including mindfulness and healing in nature for youth and adult military survivors. Previously he served Judi’s House as Outreach and Education Manager and Outward Bound as the National Outreach Director.

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

Partnering with Schools to Support Grieving Children

Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures and during the pandemic, OUR HOUSE had to pivot several times to meet the urgent need for grief support services in our heavily impacted community. Since 1997 we have provided school-based grief support groups in the second largest district in the nation but found ourselves needing to find new ways to do this first virtually and then when schools reopened Fall 2021 with stringent safety measures for providers coming on campus. In addition, we were tasked with finding ways to support grieving school professionals and equip them to support the students on their campuses within the scope of their roles. In this workshop we will share lessons learned building relationships with school districts, designing evidence-based curricula, supporting grieving school faculty and equipping school mental health clinicians with tools to use in school-based counseling sessions with grieving children. We will also look at the needs of volunteers leaning on staff while readjusting to the demands of providing grief support services in the pandemic and beyond.

To access documents provided by the presenters click HERE and HERE.

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 →

Objectives:

After attending this webinar, participants will be able to:

Identify two strategies to use to support school professionals
Identify four goals when designing curricula for use in school-based programs.
Identify two ways to build relationships with the schools in your area.

Speaker Bios:

Lauren Schneider, LCSW | Clinical Director of Child and Adolescent Programs
Lauren, a nationally recognized expert on Child & Adolescent Grief, has directed the Children’s Programs for OUR HOUSE Grief Support Center for 18 years. In that role, Lauren provides training for mental health clinicians, educators, clergy, health care providers and graduate students throughout the community equipping them to work with grieving clients. Lauren is the author of “Children Grieve Too: A Handbook for Parents of Grieving Children” and contributing author of “You Can’t Do It Alone: A Widow’s Journey through Grief and Life After”. She also created “My Memory Book…for grieving children”. Lauren is an Associate Producer of “One Last Hug…and a few smooches” an Emmy award-winning HBO documentary about children’s Grief. Lauren is the recipient of the 2017 Dr. Michael Durfee Award and the 2014 H.U.G. award. In her free time Lauren enjoys playing with her grandsons, cooking and nature walks. Lauren maintains a private practice in Los Angeles specializing in grief and trauma.

Carolyn Christ, MA | Associate Clinical Coordinator of School & Children’s Programs
Carolyn is an Associate Marriage & Family Therapist working with children, adolescents, and families who seek services through OUR HOUSE. She completed her undergraduate work in Psychology from Portland State University and her master’s degree in Clinical Psychology from Antioch University Los Angeles, with an emphasis on Psychological Trauma Studies. Carolyn is the coordinator of the OUR HOUSE School Program and coordinates in-house children’s groups for the West LA office. She collaborates with school personnel and district officials to continue to grow the school-based grief support program and deepen school partnerships. Carolyn also maintains a small therapy practice with adult clients in West LA, and prior to joining the OUR HOUSE team, she volunteered with Children’s Healing Art Project (CHAP) in Portland, Oregon, supporting children and families facing medical hardship through creative arts.

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

To Open or Not to Open? Navigating the Camp Opening Decision in the Time of COVID