Like all human beings, children experience intense emotions.
How they express those feelings is quite different than adults, however – and children in DeKalb County who are mourning the deaths of close family members have a strong advocate in Dana Isawi.
The assistant professor in the Department of Counseling and Higher Education is continuing the work of the NIU Center for Grief and Loss, established in 2019 as part of a $100,000 grant from the New York Life Foundation to provide direct grief services to youth in the northern Illinois area and train counselors-in-training to provide evidenced-informed grief counseling services to grieving youth.
Isawi and then-colleague Adam Carter wrote the funding proposal after conducting a needs assessment targeting grief and loss counseling services for children and adolescents in northern Illinois and recognizing a critical gap in services for local children and in acknowledgement of their responsibility as counselors and their need to prepare students with the skills to work appropriately and effectively with children.
“Dr. Carter and I were really on the same page. We were both trained in child-centered play therapy, and we truly believe in the power of play as a therapeutic approach for young children, typically ages 3 to 12 years,” Isawi says.
“Because children express themselves and communicate through play, we believe that we need to give them the medium that is more natural to them,” she adds.
“Sometimes, children don’t have the language to express their pain. It’s very rare, in my experience, that young children are able to come and sit and talk about how painful this experience is for them, but they are able to play out their experiences and emotions. They’re also able to use other creative ways to express themselves such as drawing or to painting. We don’t force them to speak or use language.”
Isawi is partnering with Northern Illinois Hospice to host Bluebirds Fly, a grief support group for as many as 10 children ages 7 to 12 over five consecutive Wednesdays this spring at Vineyard Church, 1051 S. Fourth St. in DeKalb.
Meetings are scheduled from 6 to 7 p.m. March 22 and 29 and April 5, 12 and 19. The group is free of charge, but space is limited and registration is required. Contact Jen Conley at 815-312-8338 or jconley@niha.org for more information or to register.
Launched last fall, the program is adapted from the evidenced-informed “Rainbows for All Children” curriculum. The group served children who had lost their fathers. Another had lost a grandfather.
Participants are screened in advance to ensure they “are at a place where group counseling can be effective for them and not overwhelming,” says Isawi, who trains and supervises the student-facilitators.
Questions also gather background information on the children, when and how the losses occurred, how the children are coping and if they’ve received other mental health services.
Once the sessions begin, the facilitators guide the children through planned activities including playing with dolls or sand trays, coloring with crayons or markers, painting or just have fun with their young peers.
Eventually, Isawi says, children create “memory boxes” full of their drawings or even writings to commemorate their loved ones and to provide closure.
“We truly believe that children are naturally resilient and that they have this innate ability to heal and grow when they’re provided a caring environment, so our hope is to build that environment, strengthen their coping skills and allow them to express their feelings and emotions related to loss and processing loss,’ she says.
“One of the benefits of having a group is that it normalizes the experience,” she adds. “They are able to make connections.”
FRANCINE BROTTMAN UNDERSTANDS the pain of loss.
Her daughter Becca was diagnosed with cancer at age 5, “and we lost her when she was 7.”
Since then, the family has honored her memory through Becca’s LEGacy, which in 2022 held its 15th annual toy drive for hospitalized children with cancer and other illnesses.
“That was Becca’s inspiration,” Brottman says. “She started our very first toy drive, and one of her last wishes to me as, ‘Mommy, will you do my foundation?’ She had dreams. She wanted to give toys to other kids to help them feel better.”
Brottman was an attorney before she became a mother, working in child advocacy for a legal services agency that assisted clients from low-income households. She specialized in helping families whose children’s educational needs were not being met, whether those included special education, disciplinary actions or limited English proficiency.
Later in her legal career, she became a guardian ad litem for Kane County, representing abused and neglected children.
Even before her family’s life changed, however, she had an interest in counseling as she earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology.
Now, the M.S.Ed. in Counseling student is in her final semester at NIU and interning at TriCity Family Services in Geneva. During the fall semester, she co-facilitated Bluebirds Fly sessions.
“Children may not have the words to express themselves, but through their play, they’re sharing with us what they’re feeling and what they’re experiencing. Play allows them to grow and to communicate in their own language,” Brottman says.
“We gave these kids a safe space where they could talk about grief issues,” she adds, “and we provided a bit of education along with a lot of warmth and the opportunity for them to grow and to feel accepted and safe talking about issues that kids can’t necessarily talk about freely in other places.”
Meanwhile, she appreciated the chance to learn – and to share her own ideas and resources.
“It was a great experience to work with Dr. Isawi as well as to work with Jen Conley from Northern Illinois Hospice,” Brottman says.
“I was involved everywhere, from the planning stages all the way through. We would talk before we met with the kids, go over all of the plans for the sessions and adjust as needed. We looked at the needs of the individual children we were working with and, afterward, we would process, talk about what worked, what didn’t and what we should adjust for the next time.”
Brottman’s eventual clientele will benefit, as will those of other NIU counseling students following in her footsteps.
“It’s really amazing how high a percentage of kids are facing some level of grief in their lives,” she says. “I believe this experience with the grief group was applicable, and I look forward to working with kids in the future.”
MOVING FORWARD, ISAWI hopes to offer a group for parents also facilitated by NIU counseling students.
Parents are vital partners in the process of grieving and healing of their children, Isawi says, and should be aware of normal childhood responses, as well as signs of more severe emotional struggles.
These could include an extended period of loss of interest in things their children typically enjoy; inability to sleep; developmental regression; or an increased clinginess to the surviving parent coupled with separation anxiety, sharp drop in school performance or refusal to attend school.
She also cautions parents on how they explain death.
“I’ve worked with parents who have told their child, ‘Oh, Grandpa went to sleep,’ and then the child doesn’t sleep for weeks because they’re terrified that, if they sleep, they’re going to die,” Isawi says. “Children are very concrete, especially when they’re young. It’s important to be honest and to provide accurate information that is developmentally understandable.”
