I was told last week of two recent suicide deaths by young adult residents of Oak Park/River Forest and how unsettling these deaths have been for local community members. Finding out about such deaths is not unusual for me, since the LOSS Program (Loving Outreach to Survivors of Suicide) is solely dedicated to offering grief support to survivors of suicide.
I am only too aware of the tangle of feelings and questions raised by this kind of death. I also know that when people receive grief support, they respond more adaptively to the loss.
I invite Oak Park/River Forest residents of all ages to contact the LOSS Program for information and support. LOSS offers a program for children and youth as well as for adults. Using individual, family or peer support, the program provides a safe environment within which youth are helped to address misconceptions about suicide and to develop healthy coping skills as they move through the grief process. The LOSS adult program also offers individual counseling and group support.
The LOSS Program for Children and Youth will host a six-week support group for high school youth who have lost a loved one to suicide at St. Giles Parish in Oak Park, beginning Wednesday, Oct. 5, 2011 at 6 p.m. LOSS is also available to provide school and community debriefings when a suicide has occurred. Interested community groups should call the LOSS Intake Line at 312-655-7283. LOSS publishes a monthly newsletter for survivors, the Obelisk, that can be sent to your email box. More information is available about the LOSS Program and the LOSS Program for Children and Youth at www.catholiccharities.net/loss.
For adults and parents seeking to support children in the wake of a suicide, I suggest they start by noticing their own thoughts and feelings. Does suicide feel like a taboo topic? If so, that will probably come through in the way you communicate and children are likely to respond accordingly. Discussions about death, suicide and grief are best thought of as a gradual process that takes place over time and that becomes more complete as children mature. One caveat is that in deciding how much to disclose to young children, you will want to consider what you know about a child’s unique response to loss.
Young children will not be able to understand suicide until they can understand death. So parents and concerned caregivers should start where the child is, keeping in mind what the child believes about death at his or her particular stage of development. Very young children will be focused on the loss, not the manner of death. They need considerable protection and reassurance that they will continue to be cared for and that things will be OK again.
Middle-school children will have formed an understanding of death as a biological phenomenon, and may be curious about how people die. Adolescents and pre-adolescents will usually confide in those with whom they feel safest. This may or may not be their parents since adolescents are individuating and developing their own identities and world views. They will need a strong support network of friends, family and community members on whom to rely.
Deborah Major, PhD, LCSW, is the director of the Loving Outreach to Survivors of Suicide Program (LOSS) through Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Chicago.