School counselors are seeing more and more kids sinking under the weight of grief, sadness and hard lives.

That, said Mel Erickson, director of Auburn-based Grief Works, reflects the times we live in, an unsettled period rife with troubling gang activity, depression and rising suicide rates among the young.

“Young people will take their emotional distress — including grief that they may have experienced before the age of 10 — and they are not equipped to deal with it, so they will act out or do self destructive behaviors like risk taking, promiscuity, drugs alcohol, bridge jumping, driving recklessly,” said Erickson.

Eager to give school counselors, school staff and professionals all they need to help hurting kids, Griefworks will offer a summer institute, “When Grief and Trauma Come to School,” a one-day, eight-hour workshop expressely tooled for counselors, school staff, and professionals who deal with grieving children.

Co-hosted by the Washington School Counselors Association (WSCA), the Aug. 15 workshop’s aim is to offer school personnel the most up-to-date understanding of how grief and trauma affect kids and teens and to help them figure out how to support youngsters.

“Our mindset is Johnny Appleseed,” said Erickson. “If we can train the people on the first line who work with grieving kids, we’re happy. We’re equipping them to do the work. We can’t be everywhere. That’s why we are so excited about this workshop; it’s an opportunity for educators to acquire understanding, insight and tools that they can then implement in working with grieving students. And we’re seeing more and more grieving students.”

Erickson said Griefworks already has tested the ideas with students one-on-one, in the classroom, and in groups.

“First and foremost kids need to be validated, to acknowledge that they have broken hearts, and that they grieve too,” said Erickson. “There’s a lot of myths. One says kids bounce back, but that’s because we want them to. We’ve learned that children protect their parents from their emotional pain, because they don’t want to add to mom’s grief because dad died, or because my sister died, or whatever. We’ve learned that children are very open and able to express their grief if they are given a safe cenvironment, a safe caring environment, they will do the work of grief.”

The morning session will provide an overview of the grieving process in youth, strategies for breaking bad news, and emotional first aid at the time of a crisis. The entire afternoon will be interactive – experiencing and practicing “grief work” in a small group setting.

“It’s the first time that we have done it on this level,” said Michele Ray, a bereavement counselor at Grief Works. “We have done workshops for different groups, but this is open to all, school counselors, personnel, anybody that wants to come from the whole community. With services now being cut back in schools, the sort of thing we’re offering probably won’t be happening in schools, they won’t be able to pay for it.

“We are excited about it because of the potential it has,” Ray added. “We are going to train professionals to work with young people that have grief. If we can give them the education and tools to help them in a more effective manner, then people in the community who are dealing with grief are going to be served better altogether.”

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Workshop at a glance

Date: 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Saturday, Aug. 15, 2009.

Place: Geneva Hall, White River Presbyterian Church.

Presenters: GriefWorks staff: Mel Erickson, BA, RC, CT and Michele Ray, MEd, RC

Cost: $125 registration fee

Contact: www.griefworks.org.