Repost from Shelter Island Reporter

By Ambrose Clancy

A happy group of campers at a previous Camp Good Mourning! where kids come together with caring adults and mental health professionals to process their grief in a safe, welcoming place. (Credit: Jennifer Biren)

It’s said that one of the most devastating emotional experiences in life is a parent confronting the death of their young child. What might be equal to that inner trauma is a child dealing with the death of a parent or sibling.

Coming up for a May weekend, Friday, May 2 to Sunday, May 4, Camp Good Mourning!, a program that aids children dealing with that overwhelming grief, will be at Camp Quinipet.

Deadline for registering to volunteer for the weekend is March 29, and the deadline for camper registration is April 18.

According to Paul Rubin, executive director of the Long Island-based nonprofit organization, the program provides free “bereavement camp programs for Long Island children 7 to 17.” Also welcomed are children mourning a member of an extended family who lived with them.

Created seven years ago, the nonprofit is funded through donations, sponsors and grants.

According to New York Life Foundation, one in 12 children will experience the loss of a parent or sibling by the age of 18. 

And the Foundation has reported that “93 percent of educators agree that childhood grief is a serious problem that deserves more attention from schools, and 87% agree with the statement that ‘over the past five years, it has become more common for students at my school to seek out emotional support from their teachers.’”

In the Foundation’s report it noted that, when teachers were asked how many students each school year typically need their support due to the loss of a loved one, a large majority of educators said at least one student.

The COVID pandemic was especially cruel to children. More statistics from American sociologists in a December 2021 report titled “Hidden Pain” revealed that “among the more than 760,000 deaths from COVID-19 in the United States in the last 22 months are many parents, custodial grandparents, or other caregivers on whom more than 160,000 children had relied for financial, emotional, and developmental support.

Many of these children — aged under 18 — already faced significant social and economic adversity, and these devastating losses can impact their development and success for the rest of their lives.”

The Camp Good Mourning! experience, according to Mr. Rubin, gives children the opportunity to share their “grief story and express their feelings in an emotionally safe, non-judgmental and compassionate community.”

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