SUPPORT

The purpose of Joanna’s Place is to teach children constructive ways to deal with grief, loss, and emotional trauma – to encourage resilience, strength, and sensitivity and to prevent the problems that can arise when feelings are denied or remain unresolved.

Children process and understand stressful situations differently at different developmental stages.  Joanna’s Place will help parents and families acquire the skills necessary to help children at each age and stage of development.

Joanna’s Place will provide support to families in three ways:

1. Consultations – Advice for parents—helping them learn to talk with their children about situations they are finding difficult to discuss—or even unmentionable: for example, when a beloved family member or friend has a life-threatening illness, or Mom has had a miscarriage, or Dad must go off to fight in a war.
2. Support Groups – A place to share all the feelings that accompany severely stressful situations; a way to find hope and strategies for coping; groups for children when a parent or sibling has died; for parents when a child has died or is seriously ill, or when a spouse has been lost through death or divorce; for all family members when a child—or parent—has become disabled through illness or accident.
3. Resources & Referrals – The tools families need to move ahead—reading materials, service organizations, medical, mental health, and legal professionals sources of assistance they might never have known existed.