When a family member dies, a child's life is turned upside down. The impact is devastating—nothing is ever the same.
These children need help and support. The Highmark Caring Place is dedicated to making a difference in the lives of grieving children.
It is the mission of the Highmark Caring Place to:
- Raise awareness of the needs of grieving children;
- Provide programs to address those needs; and
- Equip the community to support those children who have experienced the death of a loved one.
The Highmark Caring Place offers services at no charge to grieving children and their families.
Nothing Is Ever the Same
One out of 20 children will have a parent die before they graduate high school. That's an average of one child in every classroom, on every sports team, in every scout troop or after-school club—roughly 150,000 children in Pennsylvania alone.
And that does not include the children who experience the death of brothers or sisters, grandparents, aunts and uncles, close friends....
Yet, as many children as this is, a grieving child often feels isolated and alone, different from all of his or her classmates, friends, and peers. Grieving children feel alone and afraid, heart-broken and devastated.
"Mom died, so why can't you die too? And if you die, then who's going to take care of ME?"
In addition, many grieving children are at more risk for emotional and behavioral difficulties two years after the death of a parent than they were one year after—it takes time for the enormity of the loss to become apparent to the child.
Finding Hope
Grieving children need help and support. The Highmark Caring Place offers that help, provides that support.
At the Caring Place, grieving children and families can come together and be with others who understand what they're going through. Rather than therapy or counseling, what is provided is peer support. The children who attend come to know that they are not alone in their experiences and feelings. They and their families get support and encouragement from each other, facilitated by a caring community made up of professionals, trained volunteers and other children and adults who have also experienced a death.
"When my father died, I didn't know how I was going to live my life. I felt like I was stuck in a dark tunnel. At the Caring Place, I found the light of hope."
At the Caring Place, grieving children find hope.
Helping the Community Help the Children
The larger mission of the Highmark Caring Place is to raise awareness in the community of the needs of grieving children and how to respond to them.
Beyond the peer support groups, the Caring Place provides referral services, adult telephone support and educational programs and resources for grieving children and families, as well as consultation services, educational presentations and resources for schools and other professionals in the community who work with children.
In addition to providing support to families, the Highmark Caring Place provides written resources on various subjects related to grief, such as Coping With Grief At the Holidays, Questions Grieving Children Ask, and The Impact of Death and Grief on Children.
More information
The Highmark Caring Place is an essential community resource, offering services at no charge to grieving children, adolescents and their families. The Caring Place is a signature partner of Highmark Healthy High 5, an initiative of the Highmark Foundation.
The Highmark Caring Place operates three facilities, located in Pittsburgh, Erie and Lemoyne (outside of Harrisburg) Pennsylvania. Since the opening of the Caring Place in 1997, the program has served more than 15,000 family members and community partners.
For more information about the Highmark Caring Place, contact 1-888-224-HOPE (4673) in Pittsburgh, 1-866-212-HOPE (4673) in Erie or 1-866-613-HOPE (4673) in Lemoyne, Pa. Many more details about the Highmark Caring Place can be found at the Caring Place's Web site.
