Healing With Play

The resources on this page can help children’s museums care for the bereaved children and families who enter their doors every day. This library provides children’s museums with accessible materials that can be used for a number of different purposes, including:

• Staff training and capacity building
• Collaboration and partnering
• Program and exhibit design
• Community engagement
• Caregiver support

Looking for resources to share with children and families? Our Resource Library for Children and Families highlights recent additions to children’s bereavement media, focusing specifically on content created for those aged 0-8.

Know of something that should be here but isn’t? Contact Blythe Romano at Blythe.Romano@ChildrensMuseums.org and we’ll add it to our growing collection.

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Healing with Play Home

About Healing with Play

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Resources for Children and Families

Featured Resources

Whether you are new to offering grief/bereavement programming or you are looking for information to help you in existing initiatives, the following resources are our recommendation to get started. Additional resources are also available below.

Webinar

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Grief, but Were Afraid to Ask

Watch

Handout

Five Signs a Grieving Child or Adolescent May Need Extra Help

Download

Handout

How Children and Young People Grieve

Download

Handout

Supporting Preschoolers Who are Grieving

Download

Information

Grief by Age: Preschool Children (3 to 5)

Review

Webinar

Art Therapy: How to Use Creative Expression for Grief Support

Watch

Activity

Emotions Map

Download

Web Training

Talking with Children

Watch

Find a Grief Center Near You
Dougy Center provides a link of support programs via its worldwide directory.

ACM Trends Reports

8.1 Supporting Bereaved Children: A Guide to Getting Started (Part I)

This report presents key research findings from the literature on bereaved children. Offering a foundation for bereavement interventions, it explains key concepts, highlights bereaved children’s needs, and shares general information on the kinds of experiences and supports that can help children overcome the grief associated with the death of a loved one.

8.2 Supporting Bereaved Children: A Guide to Getting Started (Part II)

This report looks at how children’s museums can harness the therapeutic power of play to benefit the many bereaved children who walk through their doors every day. It also highlights two other actions children’s museums can take to provide for the needs of the bereaved: capacity building and resource sharing.

Additional Resources

Educational Opportunities from Bereavement Organizations

The New York Life Foundation

The New York Life Foundation’s Grief-Supportive Workplace Initiative seeks to help organizations build compassionate bereavement support policies and practices for staff.

Judi’s House/JAG Institute

Through its training and education initiative, Judi’s House/JAG Institute helps those working with bereaved youth become familiar with grief-specific, research-based, therapeutic best practices.

The Dougy Center

This organization provides support and training to individuals and organizations seeking to assist children in grief.

The Children’s Bereavement Center

Through their “Lift from Loss” training institute, this organization provides grief education aimed at community providers.

The National Alliance for Children’s Grief (NACG)

This organization offers a variety of educational opportunities to those supporting grieving children and their families.

Speaking Grief

This organization offers a series of webinars on a variety of grief-related topics, including suicide, school shootings, and supporting neurodivergent youth.

Learning Grief

Through their website, this collaboration between Speaking Grief, Pennsylvania State University, and WPSU offers advice on how to support bereaved youth in different age groups.

Tuesday’s Children

This organization’s online toolkit includes a training curriculum and resources for providing tragedy assistance and support services to families and communities impacted by traumatic events.

Academic Literature

Death and Dying: A Systematic Review into Approaches used to Support Bereaved Children

A review of the literature on bereavement interventions for children aged 3-18, this paper identifies approaches used to support children who are grieving, and includes a discussion of their implications for educators.

Parental Death: A Systematic Review of Support Experiences and Needs of Children and Parent Survivors

A review of the literature on bereavement supports, this paper highlights the value of open and honest communication as a coping strategy for bereaved children.

When a Parent Dies: A Scoping Review of Protective and Risk Processes for Childhood Bereavement

A review of the literature on individual and/or environmental protective and/or risk processes that contribute to bereavement outcomes, this paper identifies a number of practices that can facilitate bereaved children’s healing.

Play Therapy for Bereaved Children: Adapting Strategies to Community, School, and Home Settings

A study exploring the value of play therapy for bereaved children, this paper looks at how this treatment method can be implemented in a variety of settings.

When Young Children Grieve: Daycare Children’s Experiences When Encountering Illness and Loss in Parents

Based on interviews with bereaved children aged 5-8, this study looks at how young people make sense of what it means to live with loss.

Individual Resources

Talking With Children

Created by the Coalition to Support Grieving Students, this video series offers suggestions about what to say (and what not to say) to bereaved youth and their families.

Grief Talk

Created by the National Alliance for Children’s Grief (NACG), this video series features bereavement experts sharing tips on how to have meaningful, productive conversations about grief.

What to Say and What Not to Say

A set of cards that offer advice on how to speak with children who have experienced the death of a loved one. Created by the New York Life Foundation, this resource contains 25 cards available in both English and Spanish.

Grief Support for Children with Intellectual and Neurodevelopmental Disabilities

A resource that speaks to methods of how best to handle death with youth who have intellectual and neurological disabilities.

Supporting Grieving Students

A resource that includes curated lists of books on SEL, grief, loss, and healing along with discussion guides and general protocols and strategies to support grieving youth.

Conversation and Support

A video series from the Coalition to Support Grieving Students that details methods for supporting peers of grieving youth to limit social isolation, how to support over the long-term, and tips of what to say and what not to say to youth and families who have experienced loss.

Developmental & Cultural Considerations

A video series from the Coalition to Supporting Grieving Students that offers guidance on how to discuss death and dying, how to reach out to families, and cultural sensitivities to be aware of.

Supporting Students After the Death of a Family Member or Friend

A guide to supporting youth after the loss of a parent or friend, this resource provides tips on effective communication strategies and ways to provide productive outlets for the expression of pain and grief.

The resources in this section of our library seek to broaden children’s museums’ awareness of different national and regional organizations they can partner with to undertake collaborative bereavement work.

The New York Life Foundation

An organization that invests and is actively involved in programs for bereaved youth, and offers a variety of resources to care providers.

Judi’s House / JAG Institute

An organization that seeks to provide the highest quality of care to grieving children and families through training, education, and research.

Eluna

An organization that runs grief and addiction prevention camps for youth through a network of partners, and that also offers direct services and resources to help children who are grieving a death or living with a family member’s addiction.

Sesame Workshop

An organization that provides a multitude of grief-related resources for families and educators, and also conducts research on this topic through a partnership with the New York Life Foundation.

The Dougy Center

An organization that provides grief support to youth, young adults, and their families, and offers training to those seeking to assist grieving children.

The National Alliance for Children’s Grief (NACG)

An organization that works to connect those supporting grieving children to local resources and support systems.

Jessica’s House

An organization that provides support in a safe place for children, teens, young adults, and their families, at no cost, because no child should ever grieve alone.

Gerard’s House

An organization that offers a safe place for grieving children, teens, adults and families, where healing happens through acceptance and peer support.

Children’s Collaborative for Healing and Support

An organization that brings together community organizations, grief groups, government resources, and more to surround all families with a comprehensive network of support.

Resilient Parenting for Bereaved Families

An initiative of Arizona State University’s REACH Institute that provides information and practical tools to parents and caregivers, as well as providers who provide services to bereaved families.

National Center for School Crisis and Bereavement

Run out of the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles, this center provides technical assistance and advice to schools and communities in the aftermath of major crisis events, and advocates for policies that encourage best practices in crisis and grief support.

Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS)

An organization providing compassionate care and comprehensive resources to all those grieving a death in the military or veteran community.

Trauma and Grief Center at the Hackett Center for Mental Health

A center that seeks to raise the standard of care and increase access to best-practice care among traumatized and bereaved children, adolescents, and their families.

Friends Way

A Rhode Island-based bereavement center dedicated to serving children and teens, ages three to eighteen, and their families.

Circle Camps

An organization that hosts a weeklong overnight camp experience to girls who have recently experienced the death of a parent.

This section of the library presents a number of pre-existing materials (including books, discussion guides, and other media) that can be incorporated into formal bereavement programs.

Kai’s Journey

Created by NY Life, this is a film and four-part book series about a boy who learns how to navigate a profound loss in his family. The resource includes discussion guides and activity sets.

The Shared Grief Project

An initiative that shares the stories of individuals who have experienced a major loss at an early age and have gone on to live healthy, happy and successful lives.

Road to Resilience: Memories that Move Us Forward

Created by StoryCorps in partnership with the New York Life Foundation, this resource features a set of animated video stories featuring real-life individuals who lost family members at a young age. It also includes a DIY course designed to help organizations begin their own storytelling programs for children experiencing grief.

Sesame Workshop Grief Resources

A website that includes a variety of play-based, interactive grief resources, such as “The Giggle Game” (for helping grieving children discover things that make them feel good), “You Are Special To Me” (for helping children create cards for a grieving friend, family member, or classmate), “Express Yourself with Elmo and Jesse” (for helping children express their feelings through interactive creative activities), and “Art to Celebrate and Remember” (for helping children create art to remember a loved one).

When Someone Dies

A collection of resources designed to help bereaved children and their families talk about death and dying through play. Created by NACG, these resources include a set of activity cards – for example, a “Transitions Freeze Dance” that encourages self regulation and shared leadership through dance. A separate book features activities that families can participate in together—including the construction of a “relationship mobile,” a “memorial birdfeeder,” and an “honor placement.” The goal of these activities is to help families honor those they have lost and navigate their grief experiences together.

The Hero Toolkit

A set of seven activities designed to help grieving youth feel like heroes. Created by the National Alliance for Children’s Grief (NACG), these activities encourage youth to design, create, and color the kinds of clothing that superheroes wear (capes, masks, shields, etc.) and to identify with the different traits and powers superheroes possess (love, strength, healing, etc).

Children’s Collaborative Resource Library

A resource library that includes examples of programs and activities that can support grieving children, along with links to grief and trauma resources.

Healing Through Creativity

This anthology and discussion guide showcases a selection of inspiring original work addressing grief and bereavement from teens from across the US, and includes lesson plans for reflecting on grief and loss through creativity.

The resources in this part of our library seek to help libraries normalize conversations around death and dying, and to raise awareness of existing bereavement-related resources and supports within the community.

The Childhood Bereavement Estimation Model (CBEM)

Created and updated by Judi’s House, this resource estimates the approximate number of US children and youth who will experience the death of a parent or sibling by the time they reach adulthood. The model breaks down bereavement estimates by a variety of factors. The 2024 version focused on household income, while the 2023 version looked at the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2022, the CBEM focused on leading causes of death, while estimates for 2021 were broken down by race and ethnicity. CBEM reports are available on a state-by-state basis, and also offer data at the county level. Judi’s House offers local customizable reports for a fee.

New York Life Foundation State of Grief Report

A 2024 report that aims to enrich the national discussion on grief by offering valuable insights into its impact at home, school, and work. Through surveys of individuals, professionals, and bereavement experts, the report highlights the effects of grief and identifies ways to foster a grief-supportive culture.

Bereaved Parenting Research

Bereaved Parenting provides access to research articles on topics such as “sources of resilience for bereaved children” and the “development of programs to promote resilience of bereaved children and their parents/caregivers.” Each section has a reference list of research articles that promote understanding of different sources of resilience for bereaved children, along with activities to promote parent-caregiver and child-centered sources of resilience supported by research.

Hidden Pain: Children who Lost a Parent or Caregiver to COVID-19 and What the Nation Can Do to Help Them

A comprehensive blueprint for outreach and care for children who have lost caregivers during the pandemic, with a plan that requires action from all sectors across the nation in a manner that transcends politics and other divisions.

Conversation Corner

A section of the New York Life Foundation’s website that offers a way to connect with bereavement experts and organizations to encourage broader dialogue related to grief and bereavement.

Children, Trauma, and Loss

Authored by bereavement expert Donna Gaffney, this is a resource for understanding how bereavement fits in with broader mental and public health efforts, and offers tips on how to support those who are bereaved.

The materials within this section of our library are aimed at making children’s museums a trusted resource for bereaved families. Taken together, they explain grief and its symptoms, provide practical advice on effecting coping strategies, and impart information that caregivers can use to facilitate healthy grieving processes in bereaved children.

How We Grieve

A two-page document from the Yale Child Study Center discussing how bereaved children express grief and cope with their new realities.

The Power of Parenting: How to Help Your Child After a Parent or Caregiver Dies

A guidebook from the National Traumatic Stress Network and the New York Life Foundation that provides caregivers with information on how to help youth cope with the loss of a parent.

We Need Not Walk Alone

The national magazine of The Compassionate Friends, this publication features articles by and for parents, siblings, and grandparents who are grieving the death of a child in their family.

After A Loved One Dies

A New York Life Foundation booklet explaining how children grieve and how parents (and other adults) can support them.

Helping Yourself Through Grief

A three-page document from the Yale Child Study Center and Child Bereavement UK describing methods adults can use to productively handle grief — including how to talk with others, how to manage isolation and difficult feelings, and how to respond to condolence letters.

Guidelines for Parents / Caregivers: Helping Bereaved Youth After the Loss of a Loved One

Created by the Hackett Center for Trauma and Grief, this resource offers valuable insight into how children of different ages make sense of death, highlights common fears children may experience after a death, and explains how to distinguish between “adaptive” versus “maladaptive” grief.

Supporting Your Child After the Death of Their Parent

One of many resources created by Jessica’s House, this guide seeks to help caregivers support children following the death of a parent.