PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The Philadelphia Department of Public Health's bereavement care program has extended its services to include children and adolescents who are grieving the loss of a loved one to a fatal overdose.
In 2017, Philadelphia reported a record 1,217 overdose deaths. They then started to see a decline, but the numbers surged once again during the pandemic to about the same levels.
A sudden overdose death leaves trauma on the entire family, and kids especially need to process and learn how to cope. Bereavement support for the victims' loved ones started about three years ago as overdose deaths began to surge in the city. The program, called Philadelphia HEALs (Healing and Empowerment After Loss), saw the need to focus on children.
"It starts with really getting a sense of where they're at, what their understanding is of what happened, and then working with the child to figure out how they are most comfortable expressing their emotions," said program manager Laura Vargas, who works for the city's Division of Substance Abuse Prevention and Harm Reduction.
Vargas said said grief counseling for children looks a bit different than for adults, and that it all depends on the child.
"With adults, it's more talking face to face. There’s lots of different modalities that we use but they're very cognitive. For children, that might not work so it may be more so getting them to engage, and building that relationship," she said.
"Oftentimes with kids, they kind of feel like they don't have the opportunity to speak about it or they don't have the language. A lot of times for caregivers, nobody prepared them for having these difficult conversations with children."
Since 2019, Philadelphia HEALs has served over 3,000 city residents through grief counseling, peer support groups, advocacy work and community events.