Every year here at our school we recognize Children’s Grief Awareness Day. This year we have two very dedicated students, Jenna Bosco and Sydney Holt, who stepped up and took control of how our school will be recognizing Children’s Grief Awareness Day. Jenna and Sydney attended the Caring Place Luncheon at the end of September to plan exactly how our school would be recognizing Children’s Grief Awareness. Jenna and Sydney decided they were going to contact all the English teachers and ask them to share a short video with their classes as well as read a statement to the students. Sydney and Jenna also asked all the English teachers to have any students who were willing to participate in writing short support messages in provided speech bubbles to be hung up in the hallways of the school during the week of November 14^th – 18^th.  I got the opportunity to interview Sydney about their project and their experience at the Luncheon.

While talking with Sydney, I asked her what the thought process was behind involving the student body. Sydney told me that by involving the student body they are “highlighting support” toward the students and that they are “raising awareness” on a more personal leave with the students of MASH. This led me to ask what grief awareness means to her. Sydney stated that Grief Awareness is “being aware of where it starts and that losing a pet, family, or friend can all have the same amount of impact. Grief is personal and different for each person.” Sydney also told me during the interview that grief impacts todays youth “more then we know” and that most of the today’s youth goes looking on “social Media” for ways to “cope” with their grief and unfortunately don’t end up finding the help that they need but instead finding unhealthy coping mechanisms.

Later, in my conversation with Miss Holt we discussed her experience at the luncheon she attended. Miss Holt expressed that at the luncheon they “focused on emotions…” grieving youth might be feeling and trying to process.  Sydney also stated that at the Caring Place Luncheon they discussed “that students don’t owe anyone an explanation while grieving for missing school or lacking motivation or struggling with other activities…”. While discussing Sydney’s experience at the luncheon she mentioned that her and her peers learned that there are things that you should and should not say to someone who is grieving. Many people automatically jump to apologizing for their peers loss when it’s not their fault that there peer is grieving.

It’s important to talk about grief because many suffer in silence and need support. Suffering isn’t always shown on the outside. Jenna Bosco, also an 11th grader from MASH, was interviewed about the grief awareness project. She was asked about the trip she took to the Caring Place Luncheon and her thoughts on grief awareness. One thing she said about the luncheon is, “I learned what to do as an individual and how to respond, also how to impact the school”. The trip seems to be successful, I think more people should be taught how to respond when it comes to grief awareness.

Another thing Jenna discussed with me was the amount of youth affected by grief. In her words, “It impacts the majority of today’s youth”. To show bring awareness to this majority, I learned that Jenna and Sydney are also put up a display in one of our display cases in our back hallway. When asked how they will be bringing attention to the display Sydney voiced that they are “filming” a short clip to put in our “school announcement” that gets played in our first period classes. Sydney expressed that in the morning announcements her and Miss Bosco will be “explaining to the student body how much they helped toward the display case” and thanking all the students who participated in the short support messages that got hung up in our school hallways.