Provides guidelines from social work perspective on how social workers and health care professionals can provide bereavement counseling for families whose relatives have died in emergency room. Discusses providing family with privacy and accessibility; keeping family informed; using understandable terminology; speaking directly about death;…

This document presents a program for training volunteers to assist individuals and families who are going through a crisis related to terminal illness and death. The training is described as being both didactic and experiential. A discussion of the didactic portion of the program includes descriptions of: (1) the stages of preparatory grief as…

Examines problem disclosure and coping strategies in 21 foster adolescents. Highly significant results indicate that teenagers who have experienced crisis foster placements were more likely to disclose concerns. These young people also seemed more likely to use nonproductive coping strategies when dealing with everyday problems. (Author/JDM)

Analysis of questionnaires completed by mothers (N=60) of mentally retarded children indicated that characteristics of the child and the family's crisis-meeting resources were significant predictors of various forms of stress. (Author/DB)

Describes adolescents who attempted suicide. Adolescent suicide attempts presented are most significantly related to long-term family dysfunction. Some vegetative depressive symptoms are noted in a majority of patients. Implications are drawn for strengthening the mental health practitioner's role in detecting and preventing adolescent suicide.…

Focuses on alcoholism in the husband/father. Disturbed personality and decompensation hypotheses were not supported by the data. Suggests systems theory alone is inadequate to conceptualize the inconsistency of the alcoholic, and his impact on the family. Proposes a combination of systems theory and Hill's (1949) crisis theory. (Author)

Offers advice on crisis intervention for all people who provide social services to Head Start families. Defines the conditions that constitute a crisis, and provides an explanation of four crisis categories and how to assess them. Outlines the steps home visitors take in providing support to a family in a crisis situation. (TJQ)

Hurricane Katrina resulted in a disaster of proportions not previously known in the United States. The traumatic experiences of children and families during Hurricane Katrina, the flooding that resulted from the breach of the levees, the evacuation, and the aftermath are unprecedented. In responding to the enormous mental health needs of children…

This collection of 11 articles focuses on various kinds of change that children face, and ways that adults can help nurture the development of coping strategies. Situations of change covered are crises of death, divorce, imprisonment, or hospitalization of family members, new environments such as entering school, the birth of a new sibling, and…

Substitute care for a child at risk has been been associated with psychological distress in the child and his family and a drain on public finances. To investigate the cost effectiveness and ultimate influence on family intactness of home-based family crisis intervention, 77 low income, inner city families with an adolescent child at risk of…

Suggests that stress is by necessity associated with child welfare interventions. Offers help to practitioners in reducing the kinds of stress involved in child welfare interventions by helping families build consumer-practitioner relationships, assessing family processes, generating ideas on coping with intervention-related stressors, and…

Parental death or divorce can have serious effects on children. It is important for adults and teachers to provide support and to be available to listen to the child on an age appropriate level. This paper describes the emotional impact of loss on children both when a marriage is ending and when a parent is seriously ill or is recently deceased.…

This competency-based secondary learning guide on improving responses to crises is part of a series that are adaptations of guides developed for adult consumer and homemaking education programs. The guides provide students with experiences that help them learn to do the following: make decisions; use creative approaches to solve problems;…