Santa Barbara, CA, March 4, 2025 — It’s not just adults who are impacted by grief and loss in our community. Children are as well. One in five children will experience the death of someone close to them by age 18, and one in twenty children will experience the death of one or both parents before reaching adulthood. Although death and grief are inevitable parts of life, these statistics highlight just how many children are impacted. Children are especially vulnerable when they lose a close loved one, and without professional support, grief can be especially paralyzing and overwhelming.
Children’s grief can be hard for adults to understand. Younger children do not usually express emotions using words, and teenagers tend to avoid talking about a death so as not to upset other family members. This can cause adults to wrongly assume that the children are fine, and result in leaving them alone with their grief. Other stressors, like disasters including COVID for example, can exacerbate grief.
A ten-year old child who was born and raised in Santa Barbara asked if there would ever be a time in her life when there wasn’t a disaster. When further prompted, she explained that her parents went through a divorce when she was two, then came the fires, debris flow, violence, and finally the pandemic. Over 80% of that young child’s life has been filled with disasters that can cause grief and trauma.
For children and teens, untended grief from the loss of a loved one is closely linked to depression, PTSD and anxiety. Severe reactions to loss can be traumatic and lead to emotional paralysis and destructive behaviors. Unresolved grief may also increase the risk of engaging in activities such as promiscuity, self-harm and suicide, substance abuse, behavioral defiance and social isolation.
Hospice of Santa Barbara’s Children and Family Services program provides free professional support and coping tools for children, teens and their families that are essential for successful emotional growth and healing.
HSB is active in local campuses, providing professional weekly support groups from elementary to college age students. On-campus counseling services provide a vital space for open communication, support and the development of coping skills. This mitigates the risk of drug and alcohol abuse amongst grieving youth. Additionally, HSB works closely with teachers and staff to offer guidance and support when students face a traumatic death. HSB is prepared to respond to calls from 65 schools from Carpinteria to Goleta, in case a traumatic death occurs within the campus.
“I have always admired Hospice of Santa Barbara in how they work with families and students in the community,” said Cori Simpkins, Santa Marcos High School Counselor. “But when they started to work directly on our campuses, my appreciation of them grew even stronger. HSB has been with us through countless disasters, with students who have lost loved ones, and with those that have a family member who is ill. Unfortunately we see a lot of that here on campus” said Cori.
In addition to youth bereavement counseling services in schools, HSB offers Parenting After Loss (PAL) support groups for surviving parents and/or guardians, and their children. This group helps families cope after the loss of a parent or sibling. Grieving parents and children receive therapeutic support and education to deal with the emotional challenges of family life.
Hospice of Santa Barbara provides professional counseling, support groups, and patient care services free of charge to individuals and families who are grieving the death of a loved one or experiencing the impact of a life-threatening illness. Hospice of Santa Barbara also provides counseling in our offices and on 17 local elementary, junior high, and high school campuses to children and teens who are grieving the loss of a loved one.
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