Grief & Loss

Thank you for visiting the Grief and Loss tab of the DDSLearning.com website. These resources were curated by the DDS Northeast Region Grief and Loss Resource Committee. We established this committee in May 2020 in response to the collective grief and loss we have experienced. As we move forward, acknowledging that COVID-19 is not behind us, we need to help ourselves, our colleagues and the individuals we serve make sense of this tremendous loss. We have separated our resources into Resources to Help Individuals Grieve and Resources for Staff. The focus of the articles are: how to help individuals with ID/DD grieve, how to talk about grief and loss, and how staff can care for themselves and each other.

Grieving

This section looks at ways that people can support one another through the grieving process. It gives particular attention to the experience of grieving in the context of a community of ‘differently-abled’ individuals. It includes L’Arche Canada’s 2013 “Grief Support Kit” of 3 documents (Manual, Journal and Backgrounder) for facilitating such groups with people who have an intellectual disability.