As a City Connects Coordinator at the Sankofa School of Success in Indianapolis, Ind., Omega Robinson saw students at her school who had lost loved ones and needed help coping with grief.
So Robinson reached out and formed a partnership with Brooke’s Place, a local nonprofit organization that provides “support groups, therapy services and education to empower children, teens, young adults, and their families to thrive in the midst of grief.”
Staff from Brooke’s Place come to Sankofa to help students by facilitating a grief support group at school, where it’s easy for students to access this service.
Forming this partnership helps Sankofa achieve its work of “creating a collaborative school community that focuses on student achievement” and meets students’ needs “through mindfulness and trauma-informed care.”
“About 15 students are involved in the program,” Robinson says, “and what we’ve heard is that participating has been one of the first times they’ve been able to talk about the death of their loved one.”
Brooke’s Place estimates that one in seven children “will experience the death of a parent, sibling or close loved one by the time they are 20,” making it essential to teach students that grief is a normal reaction — and that with the right support, school can be a place to process grief and heal.
“What we know about unresolved childhood grief is it can cause a whole host of challenges for children who have experienced the death of someone significant to them,” Theresa Brun, the executive director of Brooke’s Place tells the Daily Journal. “Those challenges can be lifelong.”
So a key goal is to ensure that students don’t feel isolated, and that they don’t struggle alone with depression, poor school performance, aggression, or anxiety.
To protect the privacy of students at Sankofa, we’ll share the experience of Hailey Cambron, a 14-year-old who told the Daily Journal about connecting to Brooke’s Place after losing her father.
“More than a year later, Hailey credits Brooke’s Place with helping her at one of her most vulnerable times,” the Daily Journal notes. She says a key benefit was being able to connect to other kids who had had similar experiences.
It’s an outcome that Robinson is also seeing at her school as a coordinator.
“One of the strengths of the program is the support that students get from adults and from their peers in the group,” Robinson says.
Tapping into community resources — to find mentors, donations, and support from individuals, community organizations, and students themselves — is a core principle of City Connects that helps students focus on school no matter what challenges they face. This helps students achieve long-term success, and in the case of Brooke’s Place provides students with immediate relief. As Robinson explains:
“School staff have told me that they can see an overall improvement in the students’ moods. Now that they have a safe place to express their grief, it’s like a weight has been lifted off of the students.”
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