Guide to Starting Grief Support Groups for Kids and Teens

This workshop and guide is designed to support youth-serving professionals who are interested in starting or enhancing your grief support groups. Through grief-informed practices, intentional group preparation, and simple activities, you can help young people feel seen, heard, connected, and supported. Included are eight sample sessions with recommended themes, books, and activities that support professionals can adapt to their unique role and individual needs of the youth they support. 

Click here for the slide deck that accompanies this presentation and please continue reading below for concrete resources and guidance for starting and enhancing your grief groups.

Preparing for Grief Groups: As a first step for youth-serving professionals interested in starting a grief group, we recommend taking the time to strengthen your foundation in grief support fundamentals. To begin, we suggest: 

• Watch Simple Ways to Make a Profound Difference: Supporting Children & Teens Experiencing Grief delivered by Eluna’s Camp Erin Online manager, Kelly Petersohn, LCSW. 

• Read Best Practices for School-Based Support Groups for Bereaved Students, developed by our trusted partners at the National Alliance for Children’s Grief and the Coalition to Support Grieving Students.  

If you are interested in a custom Childhood Grief Support training for you or your colleagues, click here to learn more about Eluna’s Trainings and Workshops. 

Group Formation: Once you’ve laid the groundwork, the next step is bringing the right participants together with care and clarity.

• Determine group composition (Elementary: 5–7 participants; Middle/High: 7–9 participants)
• Create a referral process and identify referral sources, such as front office staff, nurse, coaches, caregivers, etc.
• Gather consent / application forms, including purpose/expectations, parent or guardian consent, and contact information
• Ask thoughtful intake questions from the parent/guardian, such as who the youth is remembering, cause of death, whether they attended an end-of-life service, and any cultural or family grief customs.
• Hold 1:1 intake meetings with youth to gauge group readiness, build rapport, and follow up with information gathered on the consent or intake forms.

Group Structure: Intentionally creating a framework and container for your group can help create a consistent, welcoming space for processing grief and building meaningful connections.

• Sessions recommended to run 45–60 minutes, in a confidential, comfortable, and consistent location
• Set group expectations early and plan for managing group dynamics
• Aim for eight to ten, consecutive weeks total
• Open and close each session with a consistent ritual (i.e. lighting a candle, 1 word check in and out, reciting a connecting saying or promise)
• Build in relationship-building activities and a theme for each session

Group Sessions: This following eight sample sessions include recommended themes, books, and activities for support professionals to adapt to your unique role and needs of the youth they support. Because grief responses vary widely, it is essential to review each activity through the lens of the child’s age, developmental stage, cultural context, and personal circumstances, modifying as needed to ensure emotional safety and meaningful engagement. 

WEEK 1 — My Self

Purpose: Set group expectations and get to know ourselves and one another by sharing likes, dislikes, hobbies, strengths, and goals.

Opening: Welcome the group by sharing names and going over the purpose of the group. This is also a time to establish group rules and expectations such as safety first, be respectful, and have fun. Be sure to clearly address confidentiality and mandatory reporting. 

Activity:  

• • Web Game -using a simple ball of yarn passed around the circle, each participant answers a prompt to visually weave a “web” that shows youth they belong to a supportive community and are not alone in their grief.
  • Fun Ball –This energizing activity invites youth to connect with one another by tossing a ball and answering ‘get to know you’ questions. Note: Check out the “Fun Ball” version described at the end.
  • Peer Interviews – Pair up participants to interview one another with ‘get to know you’ questions. Have each participant introduce their partner to the group.
  • Never Have I Ever – an interactive icebreaker where participants share statements about themselves or their grief experiences, helping the group discover shared experiences and build connection through openness.

Book: 

• • The Invisible String – This heartwarming picture book for all ages explores questions about the intangible yet unbreakable connections between us.

Consideration: Gauge your group’s energy and readiness – whether they need more movement, tend to be more reserved, or would benefit from starting with a smaller, 1:1 entry point.

WEEK 2 — My Story  

Purpose: Providing youth an opportunity to put words to their experiences related to the death of the person they are remembering.

Activity Options: 

• • Story Writing and Sharing – Youth can use this as a guide to begin putting words or drawing pictures to their grief experience, keeping in mind that the process is more important than the product. After writing or drawing parts of their story, they can use the optional story sharing template and practice sharing parts of their story with the group.
  • Memory Board – Invite youth to bring a picture or draw a picture of their person to pin up on a memory board with the option to share about their person.

Book: 

• • Heart and the Bottle – a poignant children’s book about love, loss, and grief, following a girl who puts her heart in a bottle to protect it after losing her father, only to find she must later learn to take it out to experience life’s wonder again 

Considerations: Tailor activities to the group’s age, communication skills, and preferences – taking note whether they need more time to process independently or as a group. Recognize that some youth may know little about their person or the details of their death. Important: Intentionally select a participant who will be readily open to sharing to go first. Always offer the option to pass.

WEEK 3 — My Grief

Purpose: Explore “What is grief?” and the unique ways it impacts every part of our lives. Help children notice where grief shows up physically and normalize those sensations. 

Activity Options: 

• • Your Grief is Unique – invites participants to reflect on and share how grief shows up for them emotionally, physically, mentally, socially, and spiritually, using a printable worksheet to spark discussion.
  • Grief Puzzle – youth create puzzle pieces showing how their grief feels (color, sound, animal, flavor). 
  • How Grief Shows Up in the Body – this activity normalizes common physical reactions to grief and encourages youth to build awareness about the ways in which they may be experiencing grief now and in the future. 

Book:

• • What Does Grief Feel Like? – uses gentle, open-ended questions and child-friendly language to help young readers explore and validate their own unique experience of grief after their person dies.
  • Grief Is a Mess (Author Series read–aloud) Reinforces uniqueness and emotional variability. Invite youth to reflect about any parts of the story that stood out to them or is connected to their experience. 

Considerations: Assess what youth already know, gently highlight any misconceptions, unknowns, or untruths, and take into account their capacity for abstract thinking.

WEEK 4 — My Thoughts, Feelings, Questions

Purpose: Identify big thoughts, feelings, and questions that can complicate and/or intensify the grief experience.

Activity: 

• • Behind the Mask – Youth decorate a mask showing the “outside” face they present to the world versus all of the thoughts, feelings, and questions they hide on the “inside.”
  • My Inside Outside Bag – Participants fill a bag with images or objects representing how they appear on the outside and what they’re really feeling on the inside, making internal grief visible.
  • Anger Iceberg – Using the image of an iceberg, youth explore how anger (the visible tip) often sits above deeper, less visible emotions like sadness, fear, or loneliness.
  • Unfinished Business – Youth identify and express things left unsaid or undone with the person who died, often through letter-writing or drawing. Identifying and naming thoughts and feelings related to unfinished business can be incredibly meaningful to youth moving through the grief.

Book:

• • Samantha Jane’s Missing Smile – follows a young girl navigating grief and guilt after her father’s death, as her neighbor Mrs. Cooper helps her find comfort, coping tools, and hope for smiling again.

Resource to send home for Parents/Caregivers: 

• • Sesame Workshop: Growing as We Grieve – an interactive experience for parents and caregivers to reflect on their own experience of grief and hear what has helped other families cope, thrive, and find joy. Also available in Spanish. 

Considerations: Notice which themes are showing up in your group – anger, guilt, regret, or masked emotions. Keep in mind that youth may lean toward independent processing rather than group sharing.

WEEK 5 — My Memories 

Purpose: Reminisce and capture special memories shared with the person youth are remembering.

Activity: 

• • Memory Symbols – invites participants to reflect on cherished memories of their person and turn each one into a personal symbol, creating an art piece that serves as an ongoing reminder of that connection.
  • Memory Beads — create a bracelet with symbolic beads that represent meaningful qualities or memories.  
  • Memory Jar – a creative way to capture memories that can be kept safe and revisited time and time again in group or at home. 

Books: 

• • A Million Little Stars – follows My’Angel as she learns to navigate grief after her father’s death, offering young readers over 50 mindfulness strategies and activities to help them process loss and build a wellness toolkit.
  • The Memory Box: A book about grief – The child in the story creates a memory box to keep mementos and written memories of their person, to help in the grieving process. 
  • Chester Raccoon and the Acorn Full of Memories – A beautiful, touching story about making memories after someone we love dies. 

Considerations: Youth often fear that over time their memories will fade. Talking about and revisiting moments shared with their person makes those memories easier to recall over time. Recognize that some youth may have limited memories, while others may have memories they do not want to remember or share.

Activity to send home to be done with a caregiver: 

• • Memory Scavenger Hunt – this activity invites families to find symbolic items that represent memories and connections with their person. These items can then be used to create a memory box or displayed shadow box.

WEEK 6 — My Coping

Purpose: Discover activities that support healthy grief expression.

Activity: 

• • My Resource Tree – invites youth to paint a tree with leaves for their personal strengths, branches for their coping skills, and a trunk naming the people who support them, creating a lasting visual reminder of their resources when facing grief or hardship.
  • Stepping IN or OUT of Grief — an activity worksheet to explore a range of coping skills & strategies that may help to Step In and Out of grief. 
  • Print or show this Coping Skills Poster for Youth and have students take turns pointing to some of their preferred coping skills.

Book:

• • The ABCs of Grief – a series of three children’s grief books to chose from for youth. The third book explores grief coping skills in particular. 

Consideration: Help youth distinguish healthy from unhealthy coping skills, emphasizing moderation, and encourage them to try different strategies on to see which ones fit best for them.

WEEK 7 — My Connection

Purpose: Identify ways to maintain connection to and honor the person we are remembering.

Activity: 

• • Goodbye Letter – offers youth a sentence-starter template to write to their person who died, providing a gentle, opt-in way to explore complex emotions and find release through the choice to share, save, or shred what they’ve written.
  • Meaningful Messages – invites youth to draw, write, or meditate on messages for the person they’re remembering, then symbolically send them through creative methods like blowing bubbles, flying wish paper, or releasing flowers on water to foster an ongoing sense of connection.
  • Ocean Drum – can be used to practice rhythmic, mindful breathing incorporating the sounds to guide and deepen each breath. A special memory of or message to the person being remembered can be used to decorate the drum; creating a meaningful connection to the person who died. 

Book:  

• • I’ll Always be There – a children’s book by mother-daughter authors Dionna and Olivia Brown that gently reassures grieving children their person remains with them through celebrated memories, offering comfort and a starting point for conversations.

Consideration: It can be meaningful to share all the different ways to send special messages and deciding as a group which they would like to do during the last group.

Handout to send home: Caregivers and families can look through the 25 small ways to feel connected together, choosing a few that resonate and then build simple, shared rituals of remembrance into everyday family life.

WEEK 8 — My Progress

Purpose: Explore how our grief has changed over time and identify ways to be intentional in prioritizing ongoing progress throughout the grief journey.

Activity:  

• • Forever Blended – Blend two colors of playdough: one representing the child, one the person who died — showing the forever connection 
  • The Ways We’ve Grown – As youth color, paint, or draw, talk about some positive ways in which they’ve grown since their person died. Ask, “Have you learned to do old things in new ways? Have you learned something new about yourself or your family? Are you more compassionate, kind, or present? Have you made a new friend? What values or priorities have surfaced in the midst of your grief? In what new ways will you honor and remember your person? 
  • Supports and Comforts – This activity guides youth in creating a visual reminder of the connections and resources that help them feel cared for.

Book: 

• • It’s Still OK to Laugh – Through warm language and tender illustrations, this story helps kids understand that it is okay to cry, and it is also okay to laugh and feel joy again. 

Consideration: Provide an evaluation to capture participant feedback if feasible. Information gleaned can be used to enhance programming, share impact, and recruit new group members. In addition, share links to additional resources and send home a Resource List to parents/caregivers for ongoing support. Eluna’s personalized support can be used to develop a curated list.