Volume 18, No. 1, Winter 2010
When a family member passes away, there’s always so much to do; funeral arrangements, settling an estate, possibly creating new housing arrangements for the survivors. It actually can be therapeutic. Keeping busy, preparing for the future leaves less time to dwell on the loss.
But that’s for adults. What about the children? They grieve in the corner, often ignored, with no busy work to ease their loss.
VNA of Cape Cod has taken steps to remember the little ones.
In 2008, they started a program called Good Grief in conjunction with Boston Medical Center. This ran until May of 2009. Then, according to VNA Hospice Manager Melody Collis, this past September they instituted a new program of their own called Heart to Heart, but using the Good Grief model as a framework.
The first six-week program included eight children and a second session began in January.
Each session starts with a pizza dinner and informal socializing. The children and parent or guardian stay together for this portion of the evening Then, before they split up into the various groups with separate social workers, the families gather in a circle around a flower vase with flowers lying beside it. Children and adults may take a flower and say something about their loved one, as they place it in the vase.
The two groups reunite at the end and there may be a candle-lighting ceremony at that point.
“It’s a place for kids to feel safe and to able to grieve in their own way,” said Rick Bickford, MSW, LICSW, a clinical social worker who directs the program for VNA of Cape Cod. “The goal is make this very normal. We want to build resiliency so children can deal with the loss.”
VNA of Cape Cod gets the word out about the program through notices in schools, churches, pediatricians’ offices and newspapers, said Nancy Higgins, MSW, LICSW, a bereavement counselor who works with the adults in the Heart to Heart sessions.
The Heart to Heart program is free and open to children ages 5-13 who have lost a parent, sibling or grandparent. The children are separated into three age groups; 5-7-year-olds, 8-10-year-olds, and 11-13-year-olds. There is music therapy and Ms. Collis says they hope to add art therapy as well. The group meets at the Cultural Center of Cape Cod on Old Main Street in South Yarmouth.
Children usually do an age-appropriate craft project at each meeting, which is intended to help children express the grief they are feeling.
The Visiting Nurse Association of Cape Cod has been named to the 2009 HomeCare Elite, a compilation of the most successful Medicare-certified home health care providers in the United States. This annual review identifies the top 25 percent of agencies based on quality outcomes, quality improvement and financial performance. The data is compiled from publicly available information.
The HomeCare Elite is the only performance recognition of its kind in the home health industry and was developed by OCS, Inc., a provider of healthcare informatics and DecisionHealth, publisher of the home care industry’s independent newsletter Home Health Line.
The VNA of Cape Cod also was a finalist for the fifth time in the last eight years for the Pinnacle Award from the VNA of New England. This award is based on patient satisfaction results.