Resource Library

The United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as the Food Stamp Program, provides qualifying low-income households with food benefits, access to a healthy diet and education on food preparation and nutrition.

Social Security survivors benefits are paid to widows, widowers, and dependents of eligible workers. This benefit is particularly important for young families with children.

The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program provides grant funds to states and territories to provide families with financial assistance and related support services. State-administered programs may include childcare assistance, job preparation, and work assistance.

Comfort Zone Camp is a national bereavement camp with 18 years experience. CZC provides in-person and virtual programming for children ages 7-17, as well as family programming.

Increase student and staff resilience through a free, evidence-based initiative that helps schools create safe and supportive learning environments.

Experience Camps provides no-cost, week-long, overnight summer camps are hosted annually across the country for children and teens (grades 4 through 12) who have experienced the death of a parent, sibling, or primary caregiver.

This booklet outlines the rights, roles, and responsibilities that exist between a student who is grieving and the school community.

Suggestions geared toward students in two age groups (K-5th grade and 6th-12th grade) on how to support a friend or classmate who is grieving.

The National Alliance for Grieving Children lists grief support service providers who serve children, teens and their families. The National Alliance for Grieving Children does not evaluate or check the…

To help ease the financial burden during the coronavirus pandemic, FEMA is providing up to $9,000 reimbursement for funeral expenses related to COVID-19. The death must have occurred after January 20, 2020.

The Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) provides a temporary discount on monthly broadband bills for qualifying low-income households.

If you are behind on your rent and at risk of losing your housing, apply at a state or local level for emergency rental assistance.

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, it may be easier for you and your family to access food stamps and take part in meal programs. Contact your state's social services agency to see if you are eligible.

This article provides an in-depth look at protective factors, how they have shifted, and strategies for navigating grief in the pandemic.

This fact sheet is part of a series co-sponsored by the New York Life Foundation and the National Child Traumatic Stress Network. Along with other leading experts, Dr. Julie Kaplow,…

A resource to remind you of your family’s unique resilience by helping you think about what you can do to make grief less stressful.

Parents, caregivers, and educators wondering how they can help children cope with grief will find many answers to their questions in this guide, which has been assembled with advice from several experts in child and adolescent grief. This resource offers tips broken into a range of ages and experiences, and information about what to say, who should say it, what to look out for, and how to help.

The Center for Complicated Grief is dedicated to improving the lives of people suffering from prolonged grief by helping clinicians and the public learn how to recognize it. Their website offers numerous resources for grief sufferers, their family members, and friends, including self-assessment tools, handouts, webinars, and articles.

Free, downloadable tip sheets from Dougy Center on a wide range of grief related subjects.

Quickly find a grief support center near you by searching Dougy Center’s worldwide program directory.

The Blue Star Caregivers Program gives military caregivers an opportunity to focus on themselves and establish bonds with fellow military caregivers. The program offers numerous educational opportunities and support resources.

The Coalition to Support Grieving Students’ purpose is to create and share a set of industry-endorsed resources that will empower school communities across America in the ongoing support of their grieving students. This user-friendly, interdisciplinary site provides practical, accessible information for classroom teachers, principals, administrators, and student support personnel.

What does “social and emotional learning” really mean? Use CASEL's materials to understand and align your community around a clear, strengths-based definition.

Big Brothers Big Sisters of America offers parents and guardians an online course to learn more about trauma and the impact of being exposed to trauma on a child. Caregivers can watch an overview of this course along with an excerpt from one of the lessons offered within the course.

Big Brothers Big Sisters of America provides one-to-one mentoring relationships that support the critical social and emotional development needed to help build resilience and promote the mental health and well-being of the thousands of children they serve.

A tip sheet for kids of all ages to explore what grief feels like and ideas for how to navigate the death of someone in your life.

Dougy Center staff is available Monday through Friday from 9:00am to 5:00pm Pacific Time. Talk to their knowledgeable staff for questions, requests for additional information, resources, and support.

When someone dies, most of us don’t know what to do, how to talk about it, or even how we’re supposed to feel. It’s confusing and strange. It can be awkward to try to connect with other people about grief. Here are some tips that can help.

If you’re faced with telling a child or teen that a family member or friend in a hospital or care facility is likely to die soon, you might be feeling confused and overwhelmed. It is never easy to share this news, and especially when there might be factors that prevent you and your family from physically visiting the person who is dying. Here are some tips for sharing difficult news and for supporting your child or teen.

In 2017, Brittany and Jonas were raising two young children and pregnant with their third when Jonas died. Brittany talks about explaining Jonas's death to their children, helping Klyde know his father, and learning to ask for help.

Whether you’re a parent, grandparent, caregiver, teacher, coach, faith leader, or family friend, the tips provided here are offered to help you navigate how to best support a child who is grieving the death of a family member or friend.

Think of a favorite time with the person who died and write down everything you remember from that day. If you can't remember one, or you never had one, write a day you wish you could have spent with them.

This is the story of Maria, beloved mother of four, who died of COVID-19 in the summer of 2020. It's a story told by Mariana, Maria's youngest daughter. At the last minute, the hospital allowed just one family member to visit, and the family chose Mariana. She was the last person to sit by her mother's side, holding her hand and kissing her goodbye through a mask and face shield.

Whether you’re grieving or helping someone who is grieving, Dougy Center is here for you. Dougy Center offers a wide range of resources for people of all ages who are grieving before and after a death. Find tip sheets, activities, podcasts, and more through the personalized toolkits.

Hosted by Jana DeCristofaro and produced by Dougy Center, Grief Out Loud is opens up the often-avoided conversation because grief is hard enough without having to go through it alone. The podcast is a mix of personal stories, tips for supporting children, teens, and yourself, and interviews with professionals. Platitude and cliché free, we promise!

Free, downloadable activities for grieving children and teens from Dougy Center.

Dougy Center’s online bookstore provides resources for before and after a death.

While everyone grieves differently, there are some behaviors and emotions commonly expressed by children depending on their developmental level. This tip sheet will help with understanding how grief affects children and teens across the developmental span.

Sandra McGowan-Watts is a mother, a physician, and a widow. Her husband Steven died of COVID-19 on May 8th, 2020. She and their daughter have spent the past year trying to figure out how to live without a husband and father who did so much to support them.

Hundreds of thousands of grandparents, parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, friends, and extended family members have died of COVID-19, leaving behind family and friends, including children and teens. If you are supporting a child or teen who is grieving a death from COVID-19, these tips can help.

Jenny Delacruz is a family therapist and author who specializes in working with children and families. Her newest book, "Momma, Can I Sleep With You Tonight?," is about the big and overwhelming emotions many children are experiencing during the COVID-19 pandemic. We discuss how Jenny sees COVID-19-related grief show up in her clients, the media coverage of the murders of Black people, often at the hands of police, and the ongoing traumatic effects of racism and racist violence.

When someone dies, it is natural for our bodies to be on “high alert.” Acknowledging that this is a normal reaction can help reduce children feeling overwhelmed. Knowing how to help your child or teen can be challenging. Here are some ways to offer support.

One way to remember and feel closer to your person who died is to hear and tell stories about their life. Download this activity sheet and write down or draw pictures of special stories about your person.

Experience Camps has launched a Beyond the Bunk program to reach more of the 5.3 million grieving children in the US, including with the national “Talk About Grief'' campaign, which aims to create a more empathetic, grief-aware culture so that no child has to grieve alone.

This resource helps support children proactively identify supports and strategies for coping with big feelings. Through it, children can easily plan to confront heavy-impact decisions in their lives.

Camp Mariposa is a year-round addiction prevention and mentoring program for youth affected by the substance use of a family member. Youth ages 9 through 12 participate in fun, traditional camp activities combined with education and support sessions led by mental health professionals. Youth who attend Camp Mariposa learn coping skills that build resiliency and ultimately break the cycle of addiction.

5-week guides of 20 minute, grade-band specific activities to build classroom community and healthier generations of students.

After a loss, it is common for families to experience a void in place of the lost loved one. When ready, families may benefit from reestablishing a family vision and agreements that honor their lost loved ones while cultivating a whole sense of family.

Write the name of someone in your life who has an illness or has died. Then, write down words, sentences, or phrases that remind you of the person, using the letters of their name.

To take care of youth well, adults need to first attend to their own needs. This resource provides 5 activities adults can use to manage their emotions so that they are in the best position for caretaking.

Drawing from nearly two decades of experience and learning, the Judi’s House Comprehensive Grief Care (CGC) Model positively impacts children through a developmental perspective that appreciates the uniqueness of every grief journey. Comprehensive Grief Care advances a wellness approach to grief support that includes a continuum of preventive, whole child, family, and community services.

For children grieving a loss, the support of a compassionate and informed adult can help them thrive, even amid significant changes in their family and lives. This practical guide, a resource provided by Dougy Center and KinderCare Education and disseminated through the National Alliance for Grieving Children, is designed to a flexible and informative source of support and information.

Wholistic self-care means focusing on 5 core elements: physical, social, community, financial and purpose. This self-care wheel gives simple ideas for taking care of each category.

The JAG Institute works to improve the accessibility and quality of care received by grieving children and families. As a recognized center of excellence, the Institute strengthens the childhood bereavement field by developing innovative tools, disseminating research findings, and providing education.

Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services is based in NYC and has 15 clinics throughout all five boroughs staffed with experienced community practitioners. They have a specific Loss & Bereavement Program for Children and Adolescents that supports the children, their families and the professionals serving them.

Judi’s House provides support to grieving children and families. Services are provided in English and Spanish to youth ages 3 to 25 and their families at no charge. Services offered include assessments, group counseling, individual/family counseling, play therapy, and educational workshops.

Open communication is critical between bereaved adults and children. Use this model to help work through conflict in a healthy way so that you can build a stronger relationship.

A 5-week program of activities that build connections between families and school. The materials can also be used by parents and caregivers to develop positive home environments.

A 4-part, e-learning resource that provides strategies for individual needs including boundaries, stress management, and holistic well-being.

Students and adults impacted by stress and trauma may experience dysregulated feelings during the day. Me Moments are easily implemented activities students and adults can use to help calm big feeling and reengage in learning.

Camp Erin is the largest national bereavement program for youth grieving the death of a significant person in their lives. Children and teens ages 6 to 17 attend a transformational weekend camp that combines traditional, fun camp activities with grief education and emotional support, free of charge for all families. Led by grief professionals and trained volunteers, Camp Erin provides a unique opportunity for youth to increase their levels of hope, enhance self-esteem, and to learn that they are not alone.

Stress tends to show up in three different ways: what we think, how we feel, and what we do. This resource helps you identify your stress patterns so that you can find more control.

The Trauma and Grief (TAG) Center is raising the standard of care and increasing access to best-practice care among children, adolescents, and families who have experienced trauma and loss. The TAG Center is housed at The Hackett Center for Mental Health, a regional center of the Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute.

In this MENTOR webinar on trauma care, participants will learn new ways to strengthen mentoring practices, discover new resources, and understand how to put the research into practice.

This free MENTOR resource was written by experts to benefit any adult looking to support young people. Full of real-world advice and evidence-based strategies, it provides mentors with tangible strategies to “be there” for young people in their various life journeys and teaches them about the core skills, key principles, and critical practices of mentoring.

Activities and caregiver tips for those working with preschoolers who are grieving.

This booklet can be used to explain the grief process to children with disabilities and those who support them. It also provides strategies to help children with disabilities move through grief and loss.

This is a research-backed and youth-informed guide designed to unpack the timely and critical topic of toxic masculinity. With this guide, mentoring programs, practitioners, and mentors can reflect on their experiences, biases, and assumptions to effectively leverage their strengths and the power of mentoring to support young people.

Suitable for children of all ability levels, the activities in this guide will help children reflect upon and cope with grief they are experiencing.

This MENTOR publication details research-informed and practitioner-approved standards for creating and sustaining quality youth mentoring programs and consequently, impactful mentoring relationships. The six evidence-based standards are intended to be applicable across almost every type of youth mentoring program.

This MENTOR guide was developed to help mentors build relationships with young people that affirm their experiences and cultivate a sense of safety after incidents of violence or traumatic events occur.

This MENTOR guide focuses on relationship-based strategies for young adolescents in the middle grades. This guide also includes a review of research related to social and emotional learning (SEL) and relationships, as well as case studies of programs that combine SEL and mentoring practices. It features recommendations for practitioners, researchers, policy-makers, and funders.

By following the suggestions offered in this guide, caregivers can help their children feel comfortable when they return to school after the death of someone important in their life. The guide also offers strategies for teachers and other staff to create environments that will best suit the needs of the child.

This guide offers suggestions about how to be helpful to a grieving child based on research and practice among children’s grief support professionals and volunteers. The suggestions will help guide adults as they seek to provide understanding and compassion to children living with grief.

Judi’s House, in partnership with the New York Life Foundation, has developed the Childhood Bereavement Estimation Model (CBEM) to understand the magnitude of the impacts of childhood grief. The CBEM approximates rates of U.S. children and youth who will experience the death of a parent or sibling by the time they reach adulthood. This information helps communities evaluate the impacts of unaddressed grief, campaign for grief resources, and ultimately, contribute to improved outcomes for grieving families.

Telling a child that someone they love has died is a painful task. By utilizing this guide, caregivers can deliver challenging news about death in a way that strengthens relationships with the child and leaves them feeling safe, secure, and nurtured.

This holiday toolkit provides ideas and inspiration for families to celebrate loved ones, those present and those who have died.

The practices and resources discussed in this MENTOR guide will be useful to any mentoring program serving boys and young men of color (BYMOC), helping them ensure that their services are culturally relevant and effective in changing lives and communities.

The experience of change and loss impacts everyone differently and can cause disconnection within families. By using this workbook, families can process and create space for everyone’s emotions and connect stories across all members of the family.

End of life memorials and rituals that follow the death of a loved one are very important. This guide offers suggestions on talking to children about the role of memorials and rituals in marking the transition of life to death, and their role as gathering moments to support one another in grief.

This guide encourages and supports honest conversations around the topic of death, and offers parents and caregivers suggestions on how to approach this topic with children.

The Lucine Center for Trauma and Grief provides free teletherapy services to children and adolescents across Texas and Louisiana who have experienced the death of a loved one.

Tips for parents and caregivers as they support their grieving child.

This New York Life Foundation booklet provides valuable guidance to parents and other caregivers who are helping children cope with grief and fear following a death in the family.

Tuesday’s Children’s Youth Mentoring Program pairs caring adults with children ages 6 to18 who have lost a parent or sibling who served in the military post 9/11, regardless of cause of death or status of duty. Using their Long-Term Healing Model, these mentee-mentor matches become lasting, meaningful friendships.

New York Life has launched a groundbreaking program called the Grief-Sensitive Schools Initiative to better equip educators and other school personnel to support grieving students. Schools and districts that enroll will be visited by a New York Life Ambassador, whose visit will help raise awareness about the prevalence of childhood bereavement and ‘grief in school’ and will provide information about the Coalition to Support Grieving Students.

The U.S. Dream Academy is empowering children most at risk of incarceration to believe in themselves and succeed. In partnership with Angel Tree, the U.S. Dream Academy is extending a special invitation for children ages 9 to 17 to receive a mentor in the Virtual Village—an online version of their in-person mentoring program. Volunteer mentors and Dream Academy staff work in partnership with parents to support students across varying stages of development by offering guidance and support.

The Children and Youth Artists’ Grief Deck is a unique toolkit that leverages artists’ ways of knowing to enable the consideration and processing of loss for the young. It consists of 58 ‘flashcards' with original artworks commissioned by youth artists (between 6 and 26 years of age) on one side, and text-based ‘grief prompts’ on the other. These prompts, authored by youth in collaboration with grief specialists, provide simple instructions for some memorial activity that can assist in coping with and moving through the universal experience of loss. Developed to be appropriate for several different age groups, the Youth Grief Deck is an open-ended resource that can be used in groups or individually. The Children and Youth Artists’ Grief Deck was produced by the Artists’ Literacies Institute alongside artist Adriene Jenik and the National Hospice Cooperative, with the support of the NYC Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (NYCVOAD) and Experience Camps.

Youth Villages helps children in 23 states from birth to age 22 with emotional and behavioral disorders, abuse, substance abuse, and/or suicidal ideation or attempts. They provide residential treatment, intensive in-home treatment, and specialized crisis services in response to psychiatric emergency. Youth Villages indicated that they are seeing increased need for assistance from children in their caregivers for their programs that assist with stress, trauma, and the financial strain of a death in the family. In their emergency response, they have also seen an increase in acuity in already at-risk demographics of children due to the added instability and stress of COVID compounding on their existing needs.

When a loss happens, young children and adults alike can feel the effects deeply. Explore this blog on grief for tips on how to cope with grief and loss during COVID-19.