Fall Corral 2023: Dealing With Grief & Loss

Both grief and loss are subjects that we speak about and address often while helping the residents that we serve at The Ranches. Grief is an unavoidable side effect of adolescence and something that all of us face throughout the rest of our lives. For the kids in our care grief, while not an unfamiliar feeling, is not a concept that they have learned to understand or navigate. Many of them have never heard the term grief prior to their stay here. While this is something that we as a program are well equipped to handle, this situation has proven to be much different. With the loss of Heath, we have, as a community, simultaneously been walking our individual paths with grief. Each path has proven to be vastly different and knowing how to walk the kids through their grief while also walking through our own has given all of us a new perspective on the topic.

We have had many discussions with the kids about how they are feeling and how we can help them to navigate the struggles that they are having. Their feelings are significant and the first step that we are taking is to ask the residents to express themselves and get their feelings outside of themselves so that we are better able to help them in moving forward. A few of the kids have written their thoughts down. . .

Read the full Fall Corral 2023  – Click Here…

Sincerely,
Mikela Kull – Interim President
MikelaKull@theranches.org