Peer Support

When you are grieving, it is tremendously healing to journey with your peers.

When someone you love is dying – or dies – grief often rolls in like a wave that washes over not only the adults in your family, but the children, too. These waves of grief keep coming long after many people "think" they should stop. So you and your children may need a safe harbor where grief healing can occur at your pace.

Lory's Place is that safe harbor.

Created especially for children, and the adults in their lives, it models the renowned Dougy Center in Portland, Oregon. Our programs use a peer-to-peer approach that helps all ages work through grief. There are programs for those that have had a family member or important friend die and an anticipatory grief program for children and adults who are expecting the death of a loved one due to illness or disease. These age-appropriate, regularly scheduled peer support sessions provide the genuine understanding, empathy and advice that help rebuild confidence and give hope for the future.

Our professional bereavement staff and trained volunteer facilitators offer guidance during each session. But it is the interaction of the children, teens and adults sharing common experiences and feelings with their peers that make these sessions so life changing. Peer to peer they encourage each other as their broken hearts and lives mend. They advocate for each other so they can confidently make choices and decisions, take positive risks and feel supported as the "new normal" takes shape within their families. The children, teens and adults build communites together, ones that challenge them to ask the tough questions, face their fears and give each other hope. Everyone who participates comes away with a stronger self-esteem.

Your child can become part of one of the following grief support groups:

• Little Mates
  Pre-school (ages 3-4)/Kindergarten
• First Mates #1 and #2
  Elementary
• Capadores
  Middle School & High School

To help a child join a peer support group or tour our grief healing center, contact us.

If you want to learn about upcoming peer support group programs and activities, click here.

Adult Peer-to-Peer Support

Grief is not easy when you're an adult. You may try to ignore it, but unaddressed grief can lead to physical and mental health problems. At Lory's Place you'll find the support and caring people you need. Here you can share feelings, experiences and memories in a support group setting.

Our professional bereavement staff and trained volunteers will guide you and offer hope as you anticipate a loved one's death or are grieving after a family member or friend dies. We offer special support groups if you have a miscarriage or stillbirth. There is also a group if someone you love dies from suicide. And there are community outreach programs that come to your organization after the death of a colleague or during a crisis.

As an adult, you may participate in the following peer groups:

• Admirals
  Adults who have experienced the death of their spouse, child, sibling, parent, friend, co-worker or anyone special to them
• Tiny Mates
  For adults who have experienced the prenatal death of a child through miscarriage, stillbirth or the death of their infant up to one year of age
• Suicide Loss Support