Rachel And The Upside Down Heart

Rachel and the Upside Down Heart is a magnificent and compelling true story that will open the hearts and minds of children and parents. When Rachel is four years old, her daddy dies, and Rachel's life changes forever. She and her mommy travel from their house in Kentucky to the busy streets of New York City. At first Rachael feels so sad that it's as if her heart is upside down. But after a while Rachel discovers happiness - while keeping the memory of her father alive in her heart.

The death of a little girl's father causes her to draw all her hearts upside down, but as she grows she finds joy in her father's memory and begins to draw her hearts right side up.

Living With Grief: Children, Adolescents, and Loss, (2000) edited by Kenneth J. Doka, features articles by leading educators and clinicians in the field of grief and bereavement. The chapters entitled "Voices" are the writings of children and adolescents. The book includes a comprehensive resource list of national organizations and a useful bibliography of age-appropriate literature for children and adolescents.

Gretchen Wolff Pritchard shows how to offer the gospel imaginatively to children, with practical ideas on children's worship, liturgy, drama, pastoral care, and study of the Bible.

Children with life-threatening and terminal illnesses--and their families-- require a unique kind of care to meet a wide variety of needs. This book, the first edition of which won the 1993 Pediatric Nursing Book of the Year Award, provides an authoritative source for the many people involved in caring for dying children. It draws together contributions from leading authorities in a comprehensive, fully up-to-date resource, with an emphasis on practical topics that can be put to immediate use. The book covers the entire range of issues related to the hospice environment and is intended for all those who participate in the hospice-care process: physicians, nurses, social workers, teachers, clergy, family therapists, parents, and community service volunteers.

First published in 1996. One spring morning a gardener noticed an unfamiliar seedling poking through the ground near the rocky, untidy edge of his garden ... So begins the parable that sets the tone for this inspiring, heartfelt new book for caregivers to bereaved children. By comparing grief counseling to gardening, Dr. Wolfelt frees caregivers of the traditional medical model of bereavement care, which implies that grief is an illness that must be cured. He suggests that caregivers instead embrace a more holistic view of the normal, natural and necessary process that is grief. He then explores the ways in which bereaved children can not only heal but grow through grief. Healing the Bereaved Child also contains chapter after chapter of practical caregiving guidelines: • How a grieving child thinks, feels and mourns: What makes each child's grief unique; How the bereaved child heals: the six needs of mourning; Foundations of counseling bereaved children; Counseling techniques (play, art, writing, nature and many others; more than ,15 pages!); A family systems approach to counseling; Support groups for bereaved kids, including a 10 session model; Helping grieving children at school, including a crisis response team model; Helping the grieving adolescent; Self-care for the child’s bereavement caregiver. A must-read for child counselors, hospice caregivers, funeral direc­tors, school counselors and teach­ers, clergy, parents-anyone who wants to offer support and com­panionship to children affected by the death of someone loved.

With this resource, the reader learns to recognize and understand different types of childhood losses while avoiding the stifling cliches that block feeling. The reader will also become aware of the myths that hinder the grief process and learn the four psychological tasks for grief. The author explains the technique of grief work, providing tools, ideas and inventories for educators to help kids commemorate loss.