GRF 1000 - Children and Grief

CHILDREN AND GRIEF

Doctorate Degree in Grief Counseling

GRF 1000

Breyer State University
Instructor: Juan Kenigstein, PH.D, M.ED., GC-C

SYLLABUS

COURSE OVERVIEW: Welcome to Children and Grief, a Doctorate Level course in the curriculum for the Degree, Doctorate in Grief Counseling. I'm pleased to offer you this course. This course provides a portrait of the mourning process in children. This course will help you work on bereavement issues, family and child therapy and developmental psychopathology.

TIME FRAME: This is a six-semester hour course. This course is allotted ten weeks of time. You must complete all of the requirements for the course successfully by the end of the ten-week period. The first day of week one will begin the day that you register for the course, or the day which you notify me that your text book(s) have arrived and you are ready to begin your studies. Please be cognizant of the time frame. It is rare that extensions of time are permitted, unless you have good justification. Upon successful completion of this course, you will be awarded six semester hours of credit. You may accelerate, but may not complete this course in less than four weeks.

TEXTBOOK: There is one (1) required textbook for this course.

Book 1: Children and Grief: When a Parent Dies: J. William Worden.
The Guilford Press: NY, 1996. ISBN: 1-57230-148-1

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EXAMINATIONS: There are no examinations for this course; grades are based on completion of assignments and activities.

GRADING SCALE: The grading scale for this course is as follows:

90-100%    = A
80-89%      = B
70-79%      = C
Below 70% = Fail

GRADING COMPOSITION:

6 Activities                                - 60%
Self evaluation                          - 10%
Research Report                        - 20%
Discovery & Intention Statement - 10%

TOTAL 100%

GOALS: The aim of education about Children and Grief is to present major findings from the child bereavement study and to look at the implications of these findings for intervention with bereaved children and their families.

COMMUNICATION: You are encouraged to communicate with me. I am available as a teacher, coach, and mentor to assist you in meeting your goals for this course. Primarily, communication is through email. However, I am also available for conversation by telephone if you would like. Our classroom for this course has a "chat" room. I am also very willing to meet with you one-on-one in the chat room at your request. From time to time, depending on how many students are enrolled in this course at a particular time, we will have some scheduled group chats. You will receive more detailed information at the time such chat sessions are scheduled. Please keep my email address handy so that you can contact me whenever necessary. Upon registration, you will receive my email address. If at any time during this course you change your email address, please be sure to notify me right away.

COURSE OBJECTIVES: Upon completion of this course, you will be able to:

1). Identify children and their families in mourning.
2). Identify children’s mourning process.
3). Identify the major influences on the course and outcome of childhood bereavement.
4). Identify how family rituals influence the child’s adjustment to the loss.
5). Describe the families’ experience of parental loss and how the changes brought about by this loss affected the children and their surviving parent during the first two years after the death.
6). Identify how children changed as they respond to the loss of a parent.
7). Identify developmental tasks in childhood.
8). Describe encounters with death during childhood.
9). Examine research on the development of death-related concepts during childhood.
10). Explore sources and typical expressions of death-related attitudes in childhood.
11). Identify issues confronting children who are coping with bereavement and grief.
12). Suggest constructive ways in which adults can help children who are coping with death.
13). Outline the important mediators of the bereavement experience and how these various mediators affect the course and outcome of bereavement.
14). Explore to what extent experiencing parental death places children at risk for serious emotional and behavioral consequences.
15). Identify children’s reactions to the death of a parent.
16). Identify children’s loss of a sibling compared with children’s loss of a parent.
17). Explore how to help bereaved children.
18). Outline the needs of grieving children.
19). Explore issues that must be considered before intervention.
20). Explore the various models that can be used for intervention with bereaved children and their families.
21). Explore activities that will facilitate children through the various tasks of mourning.

COURSE OUTLINE:

1). Introduction.
2). The Mourning Process for Children.
3). When a Parent Dies.
4). How Life Changes.
5). How the Child Responds.
6). Mediators of the Child’s Bereavement Experience.
7). Children at Risk.
8). When a Sibling Dies.
9). The Loss of a Parent by Divorce.
10). Counseling and Intervention Issues.
11). Intervention Models and Activities.
12). Project Assessment Instruments.
13). Screening Instrument and Scoring Instrument.