Grief and Loss Across the Lifespan, Second Edition

140 Grief and Loss Across the Lifespan

7. Provide ongoing supportive counseling to parents and encourage reinforce-
   ment of the parent’s partnership and other roles in their lives.


8. Offer parents the opportunity to regain a sense of control by partnering
   with the RCF administration through creating or joining a Parent Advisory
   Committee or fund raising group for the RCF.

Summary

The decision to place a child with multiple disabilities in an RCF is never an

easy one. The family struggles with guilt, loss, and anger. The child is thrust

into an unfamiliar environment; this situation is further complicated by cogni-

tive and sensory deficits that hamper understanding of the change. Helping

a family and their child successfully transition involves clinical and concrete

interventions on the part of the social worker. Partnering with the family

and empowering them to regain control by becoming more involved in facil-

ity functions can ease the long-range adjustment process. The social worker

becomes the liaison among the family, child, and the interdisciplinary team in

negotiating fruitful communications and implementing problem-solving strat-

egies. In addition, work needs to be accomplished with the child regardless

of their cognitive capacities by first, becoming aware of their nonverbal and

behavioral cues and second, assisting them to effectively express themselves

and cope with their new residential placement. The losses of both the child

and her family need to be identified and validated to allow them to mourn and

to adapt to the changes.

SUMMARY

The readings that conclude this chapter bring into sharp relief the developmen-

tal aspects of grief and loss in adolescence. The unrecognized losses involved

in identity formation are crucial aspects of loss at this age. Whether the strug-

gle is to feel “normal” or to process difference from peers, adolescents are chal-

lenged with developing a sense of who they are. They are poised between the

ability of younger children to move rather fluidly in and out of active grieving

and the more adult-like experience of extensive periods of time in the active

grieving stages of the dual process. The tendency toward “double jeopardy,”

and its paradox of needing more support yet being unwilling to reveal one-

self, leaves adolescents particularly vulnerable at a time when depression and

impulsiveness may be part of normal development. Interventions are finely

tuned to engage adolescents without having them feel too exposed, require

strict confidentiality, and attention to trust-building, while also encouraging

them to make use of family, friends’, and other support. In short, just as the

adolescent is in a liminal position between childhood and adulthood, the prac-

titioner must be poised between the nurturing and active intervention posture

one adopts with children and the more peer-like stance one may take with