Why Is Our Nation So Far Behind in Grief and Bereavement Services and Policies?

Aug 30, 2022 | Community, Family, Grief

Why Is Our Nation So Far Behind In Grief and Bereavement Services and Policies?

National Grief Awareness Day — observed annually on August 30 —  was created by Angie Cartwright, who’s experienced immense grief in her life after the loss of her baby sister, newlywed husband, and mother. She helped establish this day of awareness in 2014, coinciding with her mother’s birthday, to encourage open and honest communication centering the myriad ways we cope with loss and bereavement, and to remind us all to support the people we know who are grieving. 

“Grief is the unique emotional response following the death of someone meaningful in your life,” says Evermore founder Joyal Mulheron. “It’s a term commonly used for anyone grieving a difficult change, like grieving our old lives before Covid.”

Everyone will experience the loss of a loved one at some point in their life, and this loss is seldom easy to accept or process. Each individual will experience grief differently, and unpredictably — it can wax and wane, reemerge at unexpected times, and linger longer than we’d like.

Coinciding with the grief process is bereavement — “the death event and surrounding systems, policies, and interactions that people experience in the aftermath of losing someone,” says Mulheron. “Bereavement includes the interactions a grieving person may have with institutions and people.”

Bereavement and grief are terms that are often used interchangeably, but their meanings are distinct. Although they can work in tandem, they are dealt with differently. 

For example, if a mother loses her child, she must not only navigate the emotional toll of her loss, but potentially do so with limited time off of work, because federal policy for bereaved parents only requires two weeks of paid leave for bereaved individuals. 

In this way, the feelings of anguish and sorrow that come with grief can make the bereavement process tumultuous, overwhelming, or disorienting. And vice versa. But understanding the difference between grief and bereavement can help people navigate a complex, often difficult coping process.  

While the unexpected or untimely death of a loved one is one of the most common traumatic events Americans experience, the journey through these events often remain invisible due to a lack of awareness about how policy decisions and institutional processes impact grief and bereavement. 

Researchers and policy-makers have long overlooked questions and statistics around bereavement. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the largest monitor of health and wellness in the US, collects data on mortality events but overlooks the residual impacts — systemic, physical, and emotional — on surviving family and friends after a death event.

Bereavement has so little institutional support behind it, yet people can encounter these system deficiencies almost everywhere — the workplace, law enforcement interactions, the child welfare system, schools, federal benefits, health care, and housing. This neglect has created a public health problem with profound implications for the social and economic well-being of families, communities, and the nation as a whole.

For instance, when a child experiences the premature death of a parent, it can be difficult to find a qualified therapist or suitable in-school counselor. When compared to non-bereaved children, bereaved children experience lower self-esteem, lower grades, and more school failures, along with the heightened risk of depression, suicide, and premature death.

Individuals who are exposed to death at early ages are more vulnerable to negative social and health outcomes for the rest of their lives. These experiences cause greater cumulative disadvantages, induce greater levels of stress, and deplete financial resources.

For Indigenous, Black, and Latino people, and also people experiencing poverty, these deficiencies in our public and private systems have a disproportionate negative effect, creating additional challenges for the nation’s most vulnerable families for years following the loss of a loved one.

At Evermore, we believe bereavement care in America is broken. Which is why we’re committed to shifting policy and bringing more awareness to these issues — and how they impact real families — so that grieving can happen more naturally and loved ones can support when they need it more than ever.

Additional Resources

• Grief & Bereavement Key Facts
• Grief & Bereavement Support Directory

With Teacher Shortages, Community Programs for Grieving Kids Are More Important Than Ever

Aug 18, 2022 | Community, Family, Grief

With Teacher Shortages, Community Programs for Grieving Kids Are More Important Than Ever

With the back to school season in full swing, all of us with students in our homes have probably heard about the critical shortage of teachers. Reports say that our country lacks a whopping 300,000 teachers and support staff. 

In an interview with ABC News, Becky Pringle, the president of the National Educators Association, said, “We know that this has been a chronic problem. This is not new. We have been sounding the alarm for almost a decade and a half that we have a crisis in the number of students who are going into the teaching profession and the number of teachers who are leaving it.”

The Time Is Now to Invest in Grieving Young People

Aug 12, 2022 | Community, Family, Grief

The Time Is Now to Invest in Grieving Young People

Recently, NPR covered a fascinating club for teenage students experiencing the death of a parent. The article follows the story of a high school sophomore named Elizabeth,  whose father passed from COVID-19 last year.  More than anything, this reporting shows that the time is now to invest in community-centered programs for grieving young people and that our approaches should include all children experiencing grief.

Elizabeth George, 15, was a freshman in high school when her father died from Covid-19 last October. Since his death, she has struggled to regain a sense of normalcy. “I have difficulties even going [out] with my friends,” she says. “I just want to sleep at home.”

It’s important to point out that children, unlike adults, have to continue to go to school. There is no pause or time off for them. Sometimes, these children simply fall behind in school and in life because  they are often facing compounding instability at home. Some lose their housing, experience food insecurity, loss of health care coverage among other hardships. Children who seek post-secondary education opportunities face enormous academic stressors — like how grades will impact their path to college or how they will pay for it. We believe no child should face these hardships. 

Chaterjee continues: “Losing a parent in childhood is the kind of trauma that can change the trajectory of kids’ lives, putting them at risk of having symptoms of anxiety, depression, post traumatic stress and even poor educational outcomes.”

To be frank, this is an understatement and scratches the surface at the impact of childhood bereavement. Childhood bereavement experts have found that when compared to non-bereaved children, bereaved children are at risk of “lower self-esteem, reduced resilience, lower grades and more school failures, heightened risk of depression, suicide attempts, suicide [completions], and premature death due to any cause as a result of their loss, drug abuse, violent crime involvement, youth delinquency, and a greater number of, and more severe, psychiatric difficulties.”

Keanna Tyson holds on to her backpack during a group session at Steve’s Club in Atlantic High School. The Club meets every twice a month to talk about what they are going through.
Saul Martinez for NPR

Please check out the full article and let us know what you think. We have a long way to go to address the needs of bereaved children, but it’s encouraging to know that we are not alone in this fight!