As originally published in the Palladium-Item - August 6, 2008
Program allows foster care children to address their grief
By Martha Bowman, M.A., Master’s Level Therapist, Dunn Center- Richmond
Because of a Wayne County Foundation grant given to Dunn Center and to me this past spring, I have been able to facilitate a music therapy/grief group for foster children from Wayne, Henry and Randolph counties during the summer months. Each week, the other Dunn Center staff from Foster Care Select and I have met with these children to discuss and process the events that have brought them to where they are now.
Children who are in foster care come with a full set of grief issues. Some people might not think about a foster child as having grief issues per se, but think about all that he or she has lost: parents, home, neighborhood, school, friends, familiar surroundings. He or she has also lost specific things like a favorite toy, a pillow case, a swing set. As children, we identify very closely with the people and things around us. Imagine having all that taken away in a matter of minutes.
Even children who are "rescued" from abusive homes have loss. Although the parents or other caretakers might have been abusive, they still provided a familiar home life. The child, though neglected or abused, had a home that was familiar to him.
Additionally, the child is now living with uncertainty every day. What will happen tomorrow? The child might be thinking, "Where will I be living tomorrow? Next week?" or "Will I have to change schools again?"
Similar to an adult going through the trauma of seeing a loved one with a terminal illness, foster children go through the day-to-day trauma of wondering what might befall them next. It's hard to recover from this kind of grief because the source of sadness and loss is ongoing. These young children and teens will naturally have a hard time getting through the grief because more loss is occurring every day.
The grief process is a strange creature that affects each person differently. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross looked at death and dying years ago in the 1960s, when she came up with the stages of grief: 1. Shock and denial; 2. Anger/rage; 3. Bargaining 4. Depression; and 5. Acceptance. Unfortunately, the grief process for children is often overlooked. While we adults usually see the sadness in a situation where a loved one dies, we don't always consider how a child feels when someone dies. Sometimes children don't get to attend the funeral after a family member or friend dies.
It's even harder for foster children, because there isn't a funeral to attend. There's no "closure" because the case is ongoing -- until the parents terminate their rights or the children are reunited with their parents.
The group that we have been facilitating all summer has addressed these very issues with this specific population. Thanks to the grant from Wayne County Foundation, we were able to help foster kids -- in a musical, creative way -- to address grief issues related to their placements and to creatively express how they are feeling. To be able to assist children in this way is a gift to me personally that pays in a way that money can't measure. Thanks again!