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Hospice Society offering fall grief support programs

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Airdrie and District Hospice Society is offering a number of free programs to help support individuals experiencing grief throughout the fall.

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Youth and adult programs are being offered both in-person and online that will help people learn about and cope with grief.

The Grief Support Program for Children is an online program running from September 29 to December 15 every Wednesday evening from 6 to 7 p.m.

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Intended for youth ages 12 to 14, the program will present online sessions developed by Rainbows for All Children Canada, an organization that develops curriculum and trains facilitators to help children and youth experiencing loss.

Daria Skibington-Roffel, president of the Airdrie and District Hospice Society, said the youth programs were presented as the only other programs available to Airdrie kids were fairly inaccessible.

“The only programs available for kids going through grief were in Calgary, and they would either require kids to take time off school to attend them or parents would have to drive them to Calgary at night and then bring them back to Airdrie,” she said.

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“We introduced the teen grief support groups, and they were very well attended. Everybody said they got a lot of good out of it.”

People may grieve for many different reasons, and Skibington-Roffel said the Grief Support Program for Children touches on more than death.

“The Rainbows program also covers separation and divorce, and even when kids move. Primarily we focus on grief due to death, but it can also extend to other reasons,” she said.

Running from 6:30 to 8 p.m. every Thursday from September 30 to November 18 is the Adult Grief Support Program.

Facilitators will lead online groups, providing healthy coping strategies as people come to terms with the loss of a loved one.

The Hospice Society is also partnering with the Airdrie Food Bank to bring forward the Cooking For One After Loss program, which will teach people recipes to cook meals for one after losing a loved one that they may be used to cooking for as well.

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The online program is running every Wednesday of October from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m.

Skibington-Roffel said the programs have been well-attended in the past, and participants have said its helped exponentially.

“Grieving is a process, and not a lot of people know the ins and outs. People who are grieving find that talking to other people who are going through a similar situation helps a lot, as well as what they learn throughout the sessions,” she said.

She added that it’s normal to grieve, and healthy to acknowledge those feelings.

“(Grief) is part of the human experience, and for everybody it’s different. There’s no right or wrong way to grieve, and there’s no time limit,” said Skibington-Roffel.

“It’s something we all experience, and when people understand it’s a normal thing they can find a way to live with it and grow from it,” she said.

Anybody who is looking to register for any of the programs or find more information can reach out to the Airdrie and District Hospice Society at contact@airdriehospice.ca or 403-880-0420.

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