Product Description
Grieving expert Sally Downham Miller gives teachers and parents tools to help students mourn and recover from a death in their school.

Led by her work in schools over the past fifteen years helping teachers, administrators, students and parents cope with the deaths of students and some faculty members, Sally Downham Miller has written this guide for parents and teachers to help students deal with the loss of someone close to them.

School is often the locus of students' social lives; a death in this environment can have serious emotional consequences on school-age kids. This book will give parents and teachers a guide to help their children and students.

For the most part, schools have learned how to "do triage," by calling in counselors and providing support through the funeral. While coping with the death, the immediate trauma and the funeral are important; this only allows a scab to form over the wound. The deep healing does not take place in three days or the first few weeks, and finding ways to help people grieve over time is substantially different. The people who work in schools see the effects of grief played out over time. They are the ones who watch helplessly the decline in student learning, health, and involvement. Teachers often are able to pinpoint the exact time when a student begins to decline or to withdraw or to "medicate" themselves against their pain. But, the work of helping students grieve in schools is ongoing: a week later, four months later, years later. It calls on the school to expand its role as a school family, providing a safe place for this work to take place. In this space students can learn to understand what is happening to them instead of only acting out feelings or repressing them, becoming depressed or hurting themselves.

When there is a death in a school, all of us want to do something, but no one wants to do the wrong thing. So usually very little is done. This book provides a plan for effective training on the interventions and on-going work of grief-support teams, that can help restore health and healing after counselors from the surrounding schools go back to their own jobs. Mourning and Dancing for Schools provides a model for this work, stories of the author's interventions with children and schools, and instructions for training a team of people to help students learn to cope with loss. It is a training manual for those in our schools who want to do grief work with students, including teachers, administrators, parents, and community members. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Mourning and Dancing
Mourning and Dancing for Schools is the creation of Sally Downham Miller, an educator and grief counselor.In her work, Miller deals with parents and children after the crisis teams have left.She values crisis counselors and admits the work they do is crucial, but her main focus is how the grief process can take its toll weeks, month and even years after a tragic event.Miller is the type of grief counselor that works in the nation's Columbines when the immediate threat and shock have worn off, precisely when the most painful mourning can occur.

Miller's ideas and philosophies are valuable, but they get lost in this book.The text consists mainly of case studies of children and parents dealing with a death.There is no instructional text until about half way through the book; and even then, the practical advice, on how parents and teachers can help kids grieve, is minimal.The suggestions provide a framework with which to develop a team of individuals willing to work in the long-term process of grief management.Instead of being a complete or comprehensive text describing the mechanics of assisting in the grief process, the book appears to be a companion piece to the author's websites and her work as a speaker. This book is more applicable to a parent or professional collection, but a mature YA with an interest in grief management and community service might be interested in Mourning and Dancing. ... Read more

Product Description
This book is an essential guide for all members of a school community and other professionals who need to know how to be supportive in times of crisis - including social workers, psychologists and bereavement specialists. Whilst the emphasis of many books about young people and loss and grief has been on how to support those young people as individuals in a family context, this book takes a different approach and uses 'the school community' as the organizing supportive framework. This approach recognizes that losses are embedded in a young person's social environment - the school and its community, as well as the family. The theoretical orientation utilized is that death and all loss experiences are interpreted through social interaction and experienced within a social context. The book is firmly based on theory, research and practice. It breaks new ground in demonstrating the components in a school that can be used to support grieving individuals in times of personal crisis and to support whole school communities when traumatic incidents occur. Within this comprehensive approach attention is given to the needs and experiences of personnel - teachers, students, school leaders, parents; as well as school policies and programs and links with outside services. ... Read more

Product Description
Among the abundance of material available about death and dying, there is a very limited amount that deals directly with the needs of a school community when one of its members dies. In addition, a great need exists for schools to develop an organized plan for responding to the death of a student or staff member. A Student Dies, A School Mourns aims to fill this gap. The book not only examines and explains the grief reactions of students and school staff members and the factors that affect these reactions, it also provides a systematic guide for developing a death-related crisis response plan.

This timely book is designed to be a systematic guide that incorporates a thorough analysis of grief in school, including normal and abnormal grief reactions, factors affecting these grief responses, and the differences in death beliefs and responses of students at different ages and developmental stages. It also acts as a map or step-by-step guide for establishing a death-related response plan. The liberal use of flow charts, time tables, and action plans, turns the often daunting task of creating a response plan into a relatively painless activity, stating what must be done, who should do it, and when. Extensive coverage is given to two issues in particular: youth suicide and violence/murder in the school.

A Student Dies, A School Mourns will be a vital resource for school counselors, social workers, rehab psychologists, school administrators, teachers, clergy and anyone with an interest in death as it pertains to the school community. It will also be of use as a textbook for courses in death and dying, educational psychology, education, and educational administration. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Informational
This is a tough subject however, as a school counselor we must always be prepared for something like this.I hope I never have to utilize this information but I am thankful that I have it if needed!

Preparing for what you hope never happens.
Littleton, Taber, Jonesboro, Padukah. Those of us who teach and work withteens, must stop thinking like teens, "That will never happen tous." Ralph Klicker of the Thanos Institute (Buffalo, NY) has doneevery educator and every adminstrator a superb service by compiling thisbook. I use the word "compiling" intentionally. This is afunctional book that formulates a step-by-step approach to death and griefin a teen setting. With precise summary statements and provenmethodologies, Klicker weaves together analysis and action. By beingfamiliar with the information in this small book, schools can be preparedfor what might happen. They can also reflect on how events involving deathhave previously been handled, and either be affirmed in their wise moves,or realize their mistakes and build a better approach. Topics of valueinclude setting up a Crisis Response Team, suicide, traumatic/violentdeath, writing letters of condolencesand understanding the unique way teensgrieve. Along the way there is helpful demythologizing of the griefexperience (i.e., use the words "death," "died" ratherthan euphemisms). There is a wealth of information in this book. When itcomes to helping teens cope with death, please do not assume we know itall! Even though it reads as a "how to" book, Klicker's ideas canbe easily adapted to your unique setting. Why wait to experience it? Thisbook should be availale in every school, camp, youth center and church. Itshould be must reading for the orientation of each staff member. ... Read more

Product Description
Addresses issues of death particularly affecting teenagers, such as normal reactions to the shock of death, how grief can alter relationships, how to work through grief, and more. By the author of Living When a Loved One Has Died. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Helps kids
I'm a middle school guidance counselor.I give this book out far too often to students who have a parent or other loved one die.The kids say that it is helpful and easy to read.The pages aren't long and the type is big so they don't feel overwhelmed with too much information.I'd highly recommend this as I've heard from teenagers how it helped them.

Grief help for teenagers
This is the best thing available for young people dealing with loss from death.Small "bytes" for each day, language they can identify with.I keep a supply to give when there is need.

Great book for teens
This is a great book for helping teens cope with the loss of a loved one, whether it was a close friend or family member. The book is written with short, easy to read sentences and paragraphs. The chapters are organized in useful topics like 'suicide', 'loss of a friend', 'long term illness' ... so the reader can locate those areas that pertain to their own situation. Having lost my own mother when I was just 16 (20 years ago) I have bought 3 copies of this book already - I give them out to teens who are grieving the loss of a loved one. If you are a teen grieving the loss of a loved one or if you are helping someone in this situation, I highly recommend this book. ... Read more