2023 Hope and Help for the Holidays Course Descriptions:

General Session 1: “Surviving the Season: Coping with Grief During the Holidays and Other Special Days”

Heather Stang, MA, C-IAYT (Mindfulness and Grief Institute)

Do holidays and special occasions amplify your feelings of loss and grief? In "Surviving The Season," you'll explore the unique challenges of grieving during these times and learn personalized strategies for coping. Discover how to transform difficult moments into opportunities for meaning and connection. This empowering workshop offers you tools to navigate the holiday season and any other difficult days with resilience and newfound strength.

General Session 2: “Be Like Bamboo: Building Resilience for the Grief Journey”

Heather Stang, MA, C-IAYT (Mindfulness and Grief Institute)

Grief is a difficult and often overwhelming journey, but the resilience to navigate it resides within you; you just have to know how to tap into it. In "Be Like Bamboo," you'll explore the strength and flexibility akin to bamboo, developing tools and strategies that support your grief journey. Learn to define, grow, and evaluate resilience through engaging exercises and thoughtful reflections. This transformative workshop guides you toward a more resilient approach to grieving, fostering personal growth and emotional well-being.

Breakout Session: “Getting Unstuck: Creative Techniques to Process Grief”

Heather Stang, MA, C-IAYT (Mindfulness and Grief Institute)

Feeling stuck in your grieving process? "Getting Unstuck" introduces you to creative techniques as powerful tools to process grief, enabling you to express your feelings, release pent up emotions, and feel more in control of your grief experience. By exploring various artistic methods and creating personalized routines, you'll gain a fresh perspective on coping with loss using contemporary grief models. Unlock new pathways to meaning and self-discovery through this engaging and innovative workshop.

Breakout Session: “Children and Grief: Healing Through Play and Creativity”

Ashley Hart, MMFT, LMFT, ASDCS (Modern Wellness Family Counseling)

This presentation encompasses a holistic approach to supporting grieving children through various stages of their journey. It delves into coping skills and play therapy, recognizing their effectiveness in helping children express and process their emotions. Creative interventions are explored as valuable tools to engage children in meaningful ways during the grieving process. The session also addresses the crucial role of parents and caregivers, equipping them with strategies to provide the necessary support and guidance. Attendees will gain an overview of different types of grief and how developmental stages influence children's responses to loss, fostering a deeper understanding of the diverse ways children navigate their grief.

Breakout Session: “Walking Across Egypt: A Journey of Loneliness and Loss”

Lucy Henry, LPC, CEAP (First Sun EAP)

This small group will explore the stories we tell ourselves with the purpose of identifying their place in the story and why this contributes to feelings of loneliness on the grief journey. The session will move toward resolution through finding peace and rest by exploring and identifying personal self-care skills to use when feeling they are in the “desert of grief.”

Breakout Session: “Elder Law and Estate Planning”

Brandon Elijah, Managing Partner (Burroughs Elijah Attorneys)

Navigating legal issues when a loved one dies can be traumatic and difficult. During this breakout session the issues that impact estate planning will be addressed. The essential documents of estate planning will be covered and will include the last will and testament, special needs trust, revocable trust, and irrevocable trust. Brandon Elijah will seek to unravel the web that confuses and frustrates so many at a vulnerable time through language that everyone will be able to grasp.

Breakout Session: “What is Traumatic Grief: Can Trauma exist without A Grief Response and Can Grief exist without a Trauma Response?”

Erin Kornahrens, MA, LPC (Canterbury Counseling Center)

 Trauma and Grief are two of the hardest things we as people face everyday. This session will focus on defining traumatic grief and working to understand if trauma can exist without grief and/or can grief exist without there being an element of trauma? The goals will be to define terms and discuss how each impacts us and what are some coping skills that are most helpful in the restoration process after we experience them.

Breakout Session: “5 Tips to Manage Anticipatory Grief”

Lisa Larson, CPSS (Youturn Health)

We commonly think of grief as occurring after the death of a loved one, but it can actually begin before death. This experience is called “anticipatory grief” because you are anticipating the loss of someone close to you. In this session, we’ll discuss the symptoms of anticipatory grief like loneliness, depression, and anxiety. Attendees will also get 5 tips to help cope with anticipatory grief such as addressing unresolved issues and finding ways to connect with your loved one. Also learn to identify when you may need professional support to help manage grief.

Breakout Session: “Spiritual and Cultural Differences and Coping with Loss”

Randy Perrenoud, BCC, CEC (Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System)

This session will focus on factors that affect the grieving process across culture and religious lines. It will address the different types of loss as well as components which impact a person’s grieving process. Additionally, this session will discuss the common elements of grief, common grieving characteristics, and the goals of the grief process.

Breakout Session: “Grief Disguised”

Mike Reynolds, MDiv (Mackey Funerals and Cremation)

A class focused on “disguised grief”, which is also referred to as “hidden grief.” We focus on grief that is not recognized as grief by our social environments. We will discuss ways to navigate through a grief that is valid and often disguised but not recognized, expressed, nor engaged. We will discuss methods we can recognize, empathize and engage others and ourselves as we reveal these “disguised types of grief.”