GriefWork for Teens: Healing from Loss

Reproducible Interactive & Educational Handouts

Loss is a part of everyone’s life at some point. Each person reacts to a loss in a personal way. Response to loss is varied and influenced by beliefs and practices. With the emotional response, loss also has physical, intellectual, behavioral, social, and philosophical dimensions.

GriefWork for Teens is for facilitators helping grieving teens heal from their losses. The authors refer to the psychological process of coping with a significant loss as grief work. Throughout the book, they use the terms normalize and New Normal to convey that everyone’s grief has a unique expression and is that particular person’s ‘normal.’ The range of behaviors, emotions, and attitudes is vast.

GriefWork for Teens contains fully reproducible activities, educational handouts, and journaling pages for individual counseling sessions, educational settings, and support groups. Each interactive activity has comments and suggestions on the back explaining the purpose of the activity and at least one way to use it. Read them before using the handout to get the most out of each and give you a ‘starter idea.’ Although the handouts are written for use in groups, they may be adapted to use with individuals or as homework assignments.

Teens’ losses, no matter what, are essential and often devastating to them. They represent the disappearance of something or someone cherished. The handouts in GriefWork for Teens will engage those who grieve any loss (not just death) and encourage them to identify, internalize or verbalize personal feelings while working through the grieving process.

Five chapters guide clients through the grieving process:

• Getting in Touch

• Telling Your Story

• Self-Care

• Relationships

• A New Normal

This workbook is also available in PDF eBook format, making it simple to store on your computer or mobile device and to access with a PDF viewer. The PDF format allows you to easily print copies of the activities and worksheets during therapy and counseling sessions.