Summary - Children's grief and bereavement certificate program

Dates: October 22, 29, November 5, 19 and 26, 2025

Time: 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. ET

Facilitators: Andrea Warnick, RN, MA, RP, Lysa Toye, MSW, RSW, ExAT, and Liana Lowenstein, MSW, RSW, CPT-S.

This training is suitable for: Any professional or volunteer who is in a position to influence the support received by a grieving child. This includes frontline workers and volunteers such as medical professionals, educators, clergy, social workers, administrators, residential workers, counsellors, funeral service providers and hospice volunteers.

Client age category: For professionals who work with families and children under the age of 18.

Please note: This is a five-module/webinar certificate program. You must complete all five modules within a year to obtain the certificate. Each of the modules may be taken on their own as a stand-alone training.

Grief is a confusing and isolating experience for any person, old or young. Children's grief, however, differs considerably from adult grief, resulting in the needs of grieving children often being overlooked or misunderstood. This can have a profound impact on the social and emotional development of a child. Caregivers, including the most skilled professionals, often feel helpless when supporting children through the death of someone close to them.

The Children's grief and bereavement certificate program explores the roots of our cultural discomfort with the topic of children and death and exposes common myths and misconceptions. This certificate program equips you with skills to provide support to children, youth and families grieving the dying or death of someone they care about. Adults cannot change the reality of a death occurring in a child's life, but with the right tools they can play a powerful role in shaping the story of the child's grief experience and therefore help the child thrive in life.

This program is offered as an open module series, allowing the flexibility to register for any of the five individual modules or the entire series, depending on your learning objectives. Whether you choose to join one module or all five, this series aims to provide valuable insights and practical tools for those looking to support grieving families

Modules:

Module 1: Children at the bedside - Preparing children for the death of someone close to them
Module 2: When death darkens the door - Supporting bereaved children and youth
Module 3: Cultivating Therapeutic Presence: Mindfulness, Compassion and Use of Self in Supporting Children and Families
Module 4: When grief gets more complicated
Module 5: Dancing in the darkness - Creative approaches to working with grieving children and youth

Supporting children and youth who are experiencing the dying of someone close to them is a challenging experience across all disciplines, even for the most skilled professional. There is a growing body of research encouraging authenticity, honesty and inclusion of children experiencing a death. Yet too often children and youth remain excluded from the experience of illness, dying and death, leading to a sense of alienation for the child and a missed opportunity for their growth and connection. In our intent of protecting, we often unintentionally unplug the child from relationships both prematurely and unnaturally. Real-life and real-death narratives will be used throughout this training to identify practical strategies that can be used to support children and youth who are experiencing the impending death of someone in their lives.

Learning objectives:

The roots of our societal discomfort with the topic of children and death
Myths and misconceptions which create barriers to children being included at the bedside of someone who is dying
Practical strategies and creative approaches for preparing children for a death, including a death through medical assistance in dying (MAID)
Literary, web, and local resources for supporting children who are experiencing the dying of someone close to them

The death of a significant person represents one of the most powerful disruptions in all aspects of a child or youth’s emotional existence. Yet few professionals, whether in the field of mental health, medicine, or education, receive formal training on how to support bereaved children and youth. The focus of this training will be on supporting children and youth after a death has happened in their lives, regardless of whether the death was a recent event or occurred years ago.

The webinar will identify grief support strategies that can be used with children and youth in a wide variety of settings. “What not to say” to a grieving child, youth, or family member will also be highlighted. Stories and important messages from children and youth that illustrate “best practice” guidelines for supporting a healthy grief process will be shared.

Learning objectives:

Innovative and practical tips for helping children and youth understand the concept of death, and for supporting their grief process
Strategies for preparing children and youth for funerals, memorials and other ceremonies
What not to say to a bereaved child or youth
Literary, web, and local supports available to children and youth who have experienced a death

Much of our training in empathy focuses on being fully in another's shoes, yet recent neuroscientific research exploring the pathways of empathy and compassion reveal a different understanding of the gifts and perils of unmediated empathy.

In this experiential and interactive training we will explore both the importance of mindfulness as a core mediator in the clinical skill of therapeutic presence, as well as the possibilities for sustainable practice available through the cultivation of self-other compassion as a clinical skill. We will also touch on practices of cultural humility and cultural competence as core values of attuned and ethical care.

In addition to the exploration of the clinician’s own mindfulness and compassion practices, mindfulness practices that can be used with children, adolescents and families will be explored, underlining the value of mindfulness and compassion as essential components of providing grief support to people of all ages.

Learning objectives:

Understand empathy and compassion through the lens of neuroscience, including how mindfulness enables us to remain grounded and open in the face of suffering and distress
Explore strategies for developing open presence and deep listening in clinical work
Explore compassion as a trainable skill and the value of self-compassion as a foundation for our work with others
Consider nervous system and body-based regulatory strategies for working with suffering from the perspective of polyvagal theory
Learn mindfulness practices that can be incorporated into clinical work with children, youth and families who are grieving a death
Explore perspectives of cultural humility and cultural competence in providing equitable, inclusive and diversity-affirming care

This webinar will focus on how to support some of the populations of grieving children and youth who may experience additional barriers to a healthy grief process. Strategies for supporting children who have experienced death by suicide, homicide and substance use will be shared. The concept of prolonged grief disorder (PGD) will be touched on, and ways of identifying when a child may be experiencing signs of trauma will be highlighted.

Please note: While this training will be trauma-informed, the emphasis will be on recognizing, not treating, children and youth who have signs of trauma.

Clinical examples, practical tools and resources will be shared through small and large group discussion with the aim of enhancing participants' confidence in their ability to provide grief support in clinically challenging situations.

Learning objectives:

Support strategies and resources for supporting children who are grieving a death by suicide, homicide or substance use
Ways of identifying signs of trauma in children who are grieving
Literary, web, and local community supports available to support these populations of grieving children and youth

Play, creativity and the arts have a unique capacity to respond to human suffering, and offer experimental spaces for the exploration of ideas, feelings and questions around the experiences of death and grief.

The emphasis in this webinar will be on supporting participants who already have a theoretical foundation in children’s grief and bereavement to build their toolkit and confidence in creatively engaging with children and youth who are grieving a death.

Play-based, arts-based and other creative approaches to both psychoeducation and counseling/psychotherapy will be explored during this experiential, day-long training. Ways of using such approaches to facilitate grief education and support in schools will be shared, and ways of supporting grieving children and youth virtually will be addressed. Many easy to use (and modify) creative techniques in working with grieving children and youth will be shared, and participants will have the opportunity to engage in safe, experiential activities to better understand the process of using creative approaches. No art experience is required.

Learning objectives:

Creative approaches to supporting children and youth who are grieving the dying or death of someone in their life
Art and play-based strategies to add to the toolbox of participants who already have a theoretical foundation in children’s grief and bereavement
Strategies for supporting grieving children and youth in school

"Andrea Warnick is an amazing facilitator. She delivers the content in a way that it is easy to learn and understand. Grief is such a tough subject for adults, never mind children, and it is crucial that we are consistent with our training. This certificate program offered consistency and allowed us the courage and confidence to take the materials and use them in our practices. As an End-of-Life Doula this has been such a valuable teaching and I am so grateful I have this education to help support my clients.”

– Janine Jordison, End-of-Life-Doula and Grief Support Worker, Attendee, Children’s grief and bereavement certificate program, facilitated by Andrea Warnick, RN, MA, RP

Fees

Please see the fees tab for full cancellation and refund policies.

Admission Items

Children's grief and bereavement certificate program (5-days)

General

$1,500.00

Refund policy

Student

$1,350.00

Refund policy

Sessions

Module 1: Children at the bedside: Preparing children for the death of someone close

General

$300.00

Refund policy

Student

$270.00

Refund policy

Module 2: When death darkens the door: Supporting bereaved children and youth

General

$300.00

Refund policy

Student

$270.00

Refund policy

Module 3: Cultivating Therapeutic Presence: Mindfulness, Compassion and Use of Self in Supporting Children and Families

General

$300.00

Refund policy

Student

$270.00

Refund policy

Module 4: When grief gets more complicated

General

$300.00

Refund policy

Student

$270.00

Refund policy

Module 5: Dancing in the darkness: Creative approaches to working with grieving children/youth

General

$300.00

Refund policy

Student

$270.00

Refund policy

Continuing Education (CE) Information:

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SickKids Centre for Community Mental Health Learning Institute is approved by the Canadian Psychological Association (CPA) to offer continuing education (CE) hours. Full-day programs equal six CE hours; half-day programs equal three CE hours; for less than half-day programs, one hour of programming equals one CE hour. SickKids Centre for Community Mental Health Learning Institute maintains responsibility for the programs.

Other licensing boards and professional organizations will grant continuing education credits for attendance at their own discretion; participants will need to submit the course outline and Certificate of Participation for their consideration.