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Grief Groups in Schools

Grief groups are incredibly important for our students. They provide students with an opportunity to safely express their grief and to understand that they’re not alone in their struggles. As students begin to trust each other in group, they begin to express their inner struggles and work through their grief. Creating grief groups in schools will not only help the students but it will also save school counselor’s time. Groups allow school counselors to meet with multiple students at once, making them more time effective and beneficial to students at the same time.

Overview of Grief Theories

If you’re like me then you’ve forgotten a lot since college, so I recommend starting with a quick refresher on Grief Theories and The Power of Reflection and Silence.

TPT Print & Go Grief Curriculum

You can create these activities on your own following the steps below, however, if you’re looking to save time you can download my grief group curriculum on my Teacher Pay Teachers. My Grief Group Curriculum provides detailed instructions, educational articles for students to read, and discussion guides. My grief group curriculum is a “print and go”/”no-prep required” grief resource for counselors.

Grief Group Activities

Session 1

I normally want the first session of group to be fun so that the students want to come back. It’s all about first impressions!! I like to do some type of name game AND some type of get to know you activity. Depending on the students I might do 4 corners, cross the line, discussion beach ball, this or that, tennis ball name game, Therapy Building Blocks, get to know you bingo, etc. There are so many options out there. Find something that works for you or try something new for the fun of it!! It’s always fun to try new things!!

I also introduce group rules in our first session, which are always posted along the wall for weekly review. I add “pass” to the list of rules for grief group because I don’t want students to feel uncomfortable in group (grief can be very hard to talk about). Normally students don’t pass but it lets them know this is a safe place and I’ll never push them to do something they don’t want to do.

Session 2 (sometimes I combine session 1 and 2)

We start session 2 with reviewing the group rules (I do this with every group session). Before we move on to today’s activity, I like to take a moment to talk to the students about how grief shouldn’t be compared and how every situation is different, but we can relate to each other through our grief. I then educate the students on how to reflect and support one another appropriately. I post some reflecting sentence stems on the table to help guide them in our discussions.

We then move on to our activity All About ________.  The students fill out their paper and then we do group rounds. I always ask who would like to share first and normally someone volunteers.  By this point the students have gotten to know each other, trust each other a little bit, and are actually excited to share with each other. It shouldn’t be hard to find a volunteer to talk. Each student goes around and shares 2-3 things about their loved one. I limit it to 2-3 things because some students will want to talk a lot and others will find it difficult to say more than 2 things about their loved one. Remember you don’t know where they’re at in the grief cycle and you also don’t know what their relationship was like with the person they lost.

Session 3

Creating Memory Bracelets is almost always the students’ favorite activity!! I’ve only had one student who didn’t like this activity, apparently they didn’t have any positive memories with the person they lost. I was unaware of this but it brought on some good discussion in our rounds. Rounds involved each person talking about their bracelets. By this point in the group they should be getting pretty good at doing rounds! Check out my TPT store to download these prompts in a printable format (FREE Download).

Session 4

The fourth session is all about educating the students on the grief cycle. I provide each of them with an article explaining the stages of grief. We read and discuss the article, emphasizing the non-linear progression through the five stages of grief. I like to compare the stages of grief to a roller coaster, showing students that grief can go up, then down, then around, then back down, then in a loop just like a roller coaster (hints my grief group name-Roller Coasters). I then give each student a pipe cleaner and ask them to show me their personal cycle of grief. I then ask for a volunteer to share their grief cycle and we move into rounds. I really enjoy simple activities that lead to powerful discussions, this is definitely one of them.

Session 5

The fifth session focuses on grief over time. I teach students the box and ball analogy of grief and then ask students to draw their own box and ball. Students draw a box and ball image representing their grief for when they first lost their loved one and another image representing their grief now. Group rounds allow for students to share their drawings, triggers, and grief experiences.

Session 6

The sixth session focuses on the feelings and behaviors associated with grief. Before the session begins, I write down 20 feelings and behaviors associated with grief on index cards (one for each card). Then evenly distribute the cards amongst the students. I tell them to look at the cards in their stack and put a tally mark next to every feeling/behavior they’ve experienced. After a few minutes I tell them to pass their stack of cards to the right. They put a tally on their new set of cards and repeat the process until they’ve seen all of the cards. Then I ask the students to look through their stack of cards and determine which one has the most tally marks. We do our rounds again as each student shares the most common feeling/behavior from their stack. They talk about the feeling/behavior themselves and we have a little discussion. This activity helps the students see that they’re not alone in their grief and that someone else understands how they feel.

Session 7

This seventh session is all about Moving Forward with Grief. I provide the students with index cards labeled with the different feelings/behaviors associated with grief (the same cards as the last activity just one set for each student this time). I instructed them to take out any feelings/behaviors they haven’t experienced and throw them in the trash. We then read and discuss the moving forward with grief analogy. Student determine where their “bricks” are currently located and discuss ways they can learn to carry their “bricks”.

Session 8

The eighth session is all about the different parts of grief. During this session students complete the Grief Self-Exploration House Activity. During group rounds, I ask for the group where (which section of their house) they’d like to begin today’s discussion. Everyone discusses that section of their house before moving onto the next section of their house.

Session 9

This session is titled Letting Go of Regrets. I read the students an article about letting go of regrets and then I ask students about their regrets. I ask the students to write their regrets down on a piece of paper. Rounds is a little different this week. One person shares, everyone is provided a chance to talk with that person, and then I wrap it up (I wrap it up before we move on to the next person). I wrap it up by asking the person if they’re ready to let go of their guilt/regret or if they’re going to hold onto it.  If they say they’re ready to let it go, then I tell them to rip up their paper and throw it all away.  If they say they’re not ready yet, then I say “that’s fine if you’re not ready now but I hope you can let go of it someday because it’s painful to hold on to that guilt/regret.” I also offer to meet with them after group if they’d like to work through it more one-on-one.  Once everyone has shared, then we finish with a closing activity. I give each student a blanket with a little handout. They always love their blankets ($3 from Walmart)!! My returning students don’t get blankets every year (only the new students) but the returning students always get excited for the new students to receive their blankets. So cute!!

Additional Session

I call this session the Question Basket. I cut up a bunch of questions about grief and put them in a basket. The students take turns picking a question out of the basket and answering it. This can easily be 1 or 2 sessions depending on the how much time they take to answer the questions. This activity will kind of run itself. The students should be able to talk to each other easily, open up about their experiences, and relate to each other.

I hope you found this post helpful and that you feel a little more prepared to handle grief counseling. When in doubt just grab some resources/activities and go with it!