Continuing Education Grief Summit

The Many Facets of Family Grief

While everyone grieves differently - in their own way and in their own time - grief is also a family experience. Not only do men and women grieve differently, but losses within immediate and extended families can affect familial relationships, especially when children are involved. Family members experience many facets of grief depending on the griever's age, gender, relationship with the deceased, and the type of loss. This conference will explore those many facets, as well as ways to support families who are grieving.

This class is approved for 3.0 continuing education contact hours by the State of Ohio Counselor Social Worker and Marriage & Family Therapist Board, approval numbers RSX011303, RCX052401 and RTX012601. The Ohio Board of Nursing allows nurses to claim CE credits from a CE activity that has been approved by an agency that regulates a health care profession or discipline in Ohio.

What You Will Learn

By attending, you will:

• Understand how differences in gender may contribute to issues that arise in relationships while grieving, including tasks associated with parenting/caregiving of other family members.
• Recognize how children, siblings, and parents may experience the same loss differently — so you can respond with greater understanding to each person's unique grief.
• See how grief can reshape marriages, families, and communities — and gain ways to support relationships through conflict, distance, and change.
• Explore the grief connected to non-death losses within families — and better recognize and support losses that can too easily go unacknowledged.
• Earn 3.0 continuing education contact hours approved by the State of Ohio.

Registration & Cost

• Please register by Friday, October 2nd.
• The cost is $30 and includes a light breakfast.

Class Agenda

• 8:00 – 8:30 AM – breakfast and registration
  
  
• 8:30 – 9:15 AM – Molly O'Driscoll presenting Navigating Grief on Earth when "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" (45 minutes)
  

  Grief is both unique and universal, and its impact stretches well beyond missing our loved ones into other areas of life. Differences in how we grieve may cause challenges in our functioning, relationships, and quality of daily life. This presentation will explore this impact as well as gender differences, issues that may arise in relationships after bereavement, and tasks of parenting/caregiving for others who are grieving. Participants will also learn practical suggestions to support their relationships after the loss of a loved one, including after the loss of a child.
  
  

• 9:15 – 10:00 AM – Jaclyn Ford presenting Same Loss, Different Grief: Understanding How Children, Siblings, and Parents Experience Bereavement (45 minutes)
  Children and adolescents experience grief differently than adults, and even siblings within the same family may respond to the same loss in very different ways. This presentation will explore developmental differences in childhood and adolescent grief, similarities and distinctions between children's and parental grief, and the unique experiences of sibling bereavement. Participants will also consider the complex grief that can occur when a child grows up knowing about a sibling who died before they were born, and how family relationships, roles, and stories shape their experience of loss.
  
  

• 10:00 – 10:15 AM – quick break
  
  
• 10:15 – 11:00 AM – Andi Yates presenting Relational Grief (45 minutes)
  Grief can affect family and community systems in a myriad of ways. When a family unit, particularly a marriage, experiences a loss each member can present differently. Increased conflict, distance, and shifts in identity can take place, and make it challenging to regain bonds after the loss. This presentation will focus on ways that grief impacts relationships, particularly marriages, at large and ways to support relational systems through grief.
  
  
• 11:00 – 11:45 AM – Julie Olds presenting Non-Death Losses Within Immediate and Extended Families (45 minutes)
  Grief is most often associated with loss by death. However, we encounter multiple losses throughout our everyday lives that are NOT associated with death. Family units may experience non-death losses from many sources (such as divorce, gender transition, and estrangement). This class focuses on the grief within immediate and extended families associated with non-death losses.