Athens, OH,
08
September
2022
|
15:59 PM
Europe/Amsterdam

Donation Funds OhioHealth Youth Bereavement Programming

OhioHealth has received a $25,000 donation from the Sisters Health Foundation that will expand the health system’s efforts to support children and teens grieving the death of a significant person in their lives.

The funding will bring a youth bereavement counselor to serve children and families in Athens County and neighboring counties (including Meigs, Washington, Perry, Morgan, Vinton and Hocking Counties). 

The counselor will focus on school outreach and will also provide services and resources in schools. Individual and group counseling will be offered for free to children, teens, families and school districts. Programming and services will also be available to adults who provide care and services to youth who have experienced a loss, including outreach to school staff or other youth-service providers following unexpected or traumatic loss.

Youth Bereavement“Unsupported grief and trauma can affect a child’s behavior, grades, school attendance and coping skills, well into adulthood,” said Pam Gompf, OhioHealth Bereavement Services manager. “Our goal is to provide tools to help young people who have experienced loss so they can explore and process their feelings, gain coping skills and begin to establish healthy life plans amid loss.”

The OhioHealth Bereavement Program consists of bereavement counseling services that include care for patients, families and loved ones, OhioHealth care teams, and the community at large. The new youth counselor will be part of that program under OhioHealth at Home.  Along with the hospice and palliative medicine physicians and clinicians provide through end-of-life care to patients, OhioHealth at Home has a bereavement team that delivers support to their loved ones.

“We are proud to partner with OhioHealth in addressing the rising need for grief counseling services for youth in Athens County through the new role of a Youth Bereavement Counselor,” said Sheiron Sanchez, a program officer for Sisters Health Foundation. “Encouraging young people to realize they are not alone and that they are supported in the community will enable them to better cope with the many facets of grief.”

The youth bereavement counselor, Olivia Bower, began on June 13. To learn more about services or to make a referral, please contact Olivia Bower, MEd, LPC, at 740-497-5777 or Olivia.Bower@OhioHealth.com.

About OhioHealth  

Based in Columbus, Ohio, OhioHealth is a nationally recognized, not-for-profit, charitable, healthcare outreach of the United Methodist Church.  

Serving its communities since 1891, it is a family of 35,000 associates, physicians and volunteers, and a network of 12 hospitals, 200+ ambulatory sites, hospice, home-health, medical equipment and other health services spanning a 47-county area.  It has been recognized by FORTUNE as one of the “100 Best Companies to Work For” 14 times since 2007. 

OhioHealth hospitals include OhioHealth Riverside Methodist Hospital, OhioHealth Grant Medical Center, OhioHealth Doctors Hospital, OhioHealth Grady Memorial Hospital, OhioHealth Dublin Methodist Hospital, OhioHealth Hardin Memorial Hospital, OhioHealth Marion General Hospital, OhioHealth O’Bleness Hospital, OhioHealth Mansfield Hospital, OhioHealth Shelby Hospital, OhioHealth Grove City Methodist Hospital and OhioHealth Berger Hospital. For more information, please visit our website at www.ohiohealth.com.