Some people around KC may be unaware, but Kansas City Hospice & Palliative Care is the area’s top provider of grief support services, right along with top quality end of life care.
Grief, Defined
Grief is a natural and human response to loss. It’s something all of us will experience at some point in our lives, but it looks different for everyone. There’s no one “right” way to grieve.
Grief often comes after one of life’s biggest changes, the death of someone close to us. That could be a parent, a spouse, a grandparent, a sibling, a dear friend, or someone who played an important role in our lives.
But—grief isn’t limited to death. We can grieve many types of losses—like the end of a relationship, a serious illness, or even changes in identity or life circumstances.
What’s important to remember is that grief isn’t a problem to fix, but a process to support. And that’s why having the right resources matters so much.
Although grief is a common human experience, it hasn’t been widely recognized as a mental health need, and as a result there’s a lack of experience among traditional mental health providers in providing specialized counseling for grief.
National Grief Awareness Day is observed annually on August 30th. This date was founded to help people understand the complex emotions of loss, support those who are mourning, and to help break the stigma around talking about grief. Some ways you can observe this date—August 30th—are to:
- Send a kind text or call a friend who is going through a hard time.
- Listen: Offer a safe space for someone to share their feelings without judgment.
- Take time to acknowledge your own losses and be gentle with yourself.
Coping with Grief
Grief can impact every area of a person’s life, not just emotionally but mentally, socially, physically, and spiritually. It may affect cognition, making it hard to concentrate, remember things, or make decisions and can leave people feeling like they’re “losing it.”
Emotionally, grief can show up as sadness, anger, guilt, anxiety, numbness, or even a sense of relief. Behaviorally, some people may throw themselves into staying busy, while others struggle with basic self-care or find themselves easily distracted and tearful.
Social relationships can also shift, as some grievers withdraw from others or feel increased tension in their support networks. Spiritually, it’s common to question one’s faith, struggle to find meaning, or feel a deep sense of loss.
And physically, grief often disrupts sleep and appetite, and may lead to headaches, fatigue, or other symptoms of stress. Each of these responses is a natural part of the grieving process.
Grief Services Available from KCH
There are many types of services available for families in Kansas City. Those services include:
- Hospice Bereavement
- Families served by Kansas City Hospice are eligible for grief support for 13 months after the loss because of the Medicare benefit. This applies to everyone. They can attend groups or 1:1 services.
- Community education and support groups/workshops
- Community grief support for sudden and unexpected death and more complicated grief or combination of trauma and loss (anticipated and unexpected death).
- Solace House Center for Grief & Healing
- Facilitated Peer Support Group
- Family and Adult Grief Camps
- Solace House Counseling
- Individual and family counseling – we’ve completed more than 900+ individual counseling sessions so far this year. This has an incredible impact on the Kansas City community, especially those facing prolonged or complicated grief, and/or a difficult life transition.
- We employ licensed clinical social workers and therapists with specialized trauma training for children through senior adults.
- For payment, we accept insurance, Medicare, Medicaid and private payment. As a nonprofit, we have resources to reduce financial barriers.
Timely support for kids and their families is really important to teaching them healthy social-emotional coping skills and preventing grief from negatively affecting their health and wellbeing throughout their lifetime.
Additional Services
Our community groups help you connect with others who have experienced similar loss and gain insights, education and support from KCH grief support specialists.
- Navigating Grief
- The Grief Journey
- Men’s Group
- Sorting Through: What To Do With All This Stuff
- Nurturing Your Grief in Nature
- Spouse/Partner Loss
In addition, we brought back a beloved program last fall: Cooking for One. This program includes recipe-sharing and making a nutritious meal with others who are grieving.
Grief Camp for Families
Grief camp is a supportive and healing space designed specifically for children and families who have experienced the death of a loved one. At its core, it’s a place where grieving kids get to be around others who “get it.” There’s comfort in not having to explain why you’re sad or why certain days are harder than others.
The camp blends traditional fun like swimming, golf, tree climbing, laser tag, with intentional grief support activities like sharing pictures of loved ones.
We recently hosted Camp Erin for 73 campers – 43 children and 30 adults, representing 27 family units. Campers enjoyed the facilities at Margaritaville Resort and Timber Ridge Adventure Center. Fishing turned out to be a camper favorite this year, alongside sand jar and memory board activities. Caregivers learned more about communicating with and parenting children who are grieving and learned to deal with their own grief in adults-only sessions
The goal is to help kids and families learn to cope with their grief through facilitated support activities, and also have fun and be kids with peers who have had similar experiences with loss. This September marks the 30th anniversary of Camp Carousel, which we’ll host at Margaritaville Resorts.
The impact of camp is best captured in the words of the families who attended:
- One parent shared: “I don’t feel like I’m carrying the heaviest boulder imaginable by myself.”
- Another reflected on the rare gift of undistracted time with their child: “Coming this weekend gave a chance for me and my child to have time together without all the outside noise… this is the most she has talked in months.”
- And one of our youngest campers put it simply, describing the sand jar activity: “Sand art activity made me feel calm and made me feel like my loved one was with me.”
You’re Not Alone: Learn More and Get Help
Visit our website KCHospice.org/grief for information on other services or call us at 816.363.2600
There are other resources about grief you can read on our website, including our Journeys newsletter, and a way to sign-up to receive more information.
Our Solace House groups follow a new structure—two four-week sessions with a break in between. This model gives us flexibility and offers additional entry points for participants who may have missed the initial sessions.
We encourage anyone experiencing grief to remember you’re not alone.
Please call Solace House to speak to someone more, and encourage anyone who is contemplating suicide or in an immediate crisis to call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988.
Talking with other people really can make a difference for you. We recently received this kind words from a family in a Google review, “Solace House was there for my family and me after the tragic suicide death of my son at age 15. The group grieving experience was like no other, and it was foundational in my family’s ability to grow through our shared trauma.”
Posted in General, Grief Support