After his mom's death in 2004, 8-year-old Terry Waters III just went numb.
"He was in a distant place," his father, Terry Sr., recalls. "He was on the verge of shutting down altogether."
His father took a school teacher's advice and called the Highmark Caring Place in downtown Pittsburgh. "It was the warmest welcome that a person could ever have," Terry Sr. says. "I said, 'We're home.'"
Since 1997, the Highmark Caring Place, a center for grieving children, adolescents and their families, has served more than 30,000 family members and community partners at its facilities in Pittsburgh, Erie, Lemoyne and Warrendale.
Supported by Highmark Healthy High 5, an initiative of the Highmark Foundation, the Caring Place is also helping communities lacking grieving facilities to develop programs that follow the Highmark Caring Place model through a commitment of $1.3 million from the Highmark Foundation for six facilities.
Terry Waters, Sr. and son Terry III, turned to the Highmark Caring Place for healing after Terry III lost his mother at the age 8.
Every other week, families gather at the Highmark Caring Place for its 10-meeting program. First, they share a meal together; then they break into groups, with parents and guardians together, and children together, grouped by age. The children engage in a variety of activities, from making memory boxes to creating "feeling" masks, to releasing balloons with messages to the person who died.
"The Caring Place allows children the opportunity to grieve alongside their peers," offers Program Manager Andrea Lurier, Ph.D. "This takes away the feeling that 'I'm so different and alone.' And through the sharing and playing, they discover that it's okay to be happy again."
As for Terry III, "the fourth time here," his father says, "he started opening up, letting me know what he was feeling. Then, everything started falling back into place." Schoolwork, friendships, even his bowling score skyrocketed. "The love pours out of the walls," Terry Sr. adds. "That's why it's called the Caring Place. A lot of care goes on here. A lot."
Learn how to help a grieving child cope with loss by reading our Grieving pages.
Learn more about the Highmark Caring Place.
This story was originally published in an April 5, 2009, advertising supplement for Highmark Healthy High 5.