Childhood Bereavement Program to Expand

Work on the Loss and Bereavement Program, examining a twelve session group intervention with inner-city children who have lost a caregiver to death continues at JBFCS. Additional funding by the E.F. Robbins Fund/UJA-Federation and an anonymous mathing grant will expand the program to children whose parents have died of AIDS, to adolescents, and to additional sites. Results of a preliminary study evaluating the effectiveness of a twelve-session group intervention for these children were reported in a previous edition of Practice & Research . These early findings have also been submitted by Prof. Rob Schilling, CUSSW, Principal Research Investigator, Dr. Nina Koh, JBFCS Principal Clinical Investigator, and their colleagues to professional journals for possible publication. Data collection for the project has continued, and data are now available for an additional cohort of 30 children. The Center for the Study of Social Work Practice will analyze these data this summer, refine earlier results related to children's experiences of caregiver and death, emotional outcomes of the experience, and the effects of intervention.