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Print this pageA Decade of Healing
Lost & Found has been helping children grieve the loss of a loved one for 10 years. This month, read about how the organization has grown, where it’s headed and how you can help.
Lost & Found Grief Center—an organization that helps children and families through the loss of loved ones—is housed in a cozy, older home, tucked away in a wooded area near Chestnut Expressway. For Kelsey Beach, Lost & Found has been a part of her life for the past nine years. She attended for grief counseling as a child, and now she volunteers with the organization. “It is important to us to let the kids know that this is a safe place where they can feel comfortable,” Beach says.
Making children feel comfortable is what Lost & Found does. For the past 10 years the organization has helped families struggling with the death of a loved one deal with grief in a healthy way. Since it started in 2001, Lost & Found has helped more than 5,000 children and adults and is continuing to grow.
Some of the volunteers are former group members who have lost a parent or sibling. Beach’s dad died when she was 11. She started going to Lost & Found at 12, and has been a counselor for the past three years. “Lost & Found really teaches you how to deal with a loss,” Beach, 22, says. “It doesn’t try and hide it, and it doesn’t try to sugar-coat anything. Pretending that it doesn’t exist is just ridiculous, and Lost & Found makes you as comfortable as possible.”
In the Beginning
Back in 1999, Shawn Askinosie and Karen Scott decided that there needed to be a place to help those dealing with a death. They took their model from the Dougy Center in Portland, Oregon, which helps grieving children and adults cope with a death in the family. “Our first support groups met in January of 2001,” says Scott, a former high school counselor and grief therapist.
Askinosie had to deal with the loss of a parent at a young age without the help of others. “My father died when I was 14 from lung cancer, and it was a poorly handled death experience,” he says. “It left me as a young person a little messed up. People didn’t talk to therapists at that time, and it was generally just swept under the carpet.” A friend of Askinosie’s was diagnosed with brain cancer in 1999, and he said it brought his own experiences flooding back to him. “I wanted to be able to help him,” Askinosie says. “It really solidified to me the absolute necessity to get this off the ground.”
How Grief Counseling Works
When families call after the death of a loved one, Lost & Found schedules an orientation to familiarize the family with the program. “When they come here for an orientation, we want everything to be as simple and easy as possible,” Scott says. “We want them to come in and have this sense of being taken care of. We don’t make them fill out a lot of paperwork.”
Children are placed in a group by age. When the children are meeting, their parents get together in a group as well. “Our history tells us that the better the parents do, the better the children do,” Scott says. “That allows us to address the whole family dynamic.”
Groups are usually made up of eight to 12 children, and each group meets two times a month for 90 minutes. A coordinator with a master’s degree in counseling leads the group and teaches about how to handle death and grief.
Attached to the orientation room, the children meet in a playroom during their group sessions. Along the walls are stuffed animals overflowing the shelves, dollhouses and sandboxes on the floor. Children sit in a circle and start off by stating their name, age, who died and how. After introductions, the children participate in activities that help them deal with the grief. “The activities we do help a lot of children put words to the feelings,” says Scott. “The feelings of grief are so intense, and younger children sometimes do not have the vocabulary to express that.”
The group also allows children to feel welcomed and secure, because they are not alone. Scott says that when children see other kids the same age, who are experiencing a death of a loved one, it can be therapeutic.
Growth on the Horizon
About one in 20 children will experience the death of a parent before the age of 20. In 417-land that means that 10,000 children are grieving the death of a parent.
Lost & Found allows families from all over—anywhere within driving distance—to come to their meetings. But with increased numbers of families to help, there is a need for increased space. Lost & Found receives no money from the state, so the organization depends on donations and fundraisers.
Lost & Found plans to build satellite locations in bigger towns around the area to accommodate families who need the organization’s services. “We think we can be the main hub in the Midwest for grief support,” says Scott.
It doesn’t cost anything to attend Lost & Found, and one of the reasons for the increased attendance is the fact that there is no set amount of time that children can attend groups. “We have children here who experienced a death last week, and they may start just a few days after a death in the family,” Askinosie says. “Then we have kids who have a lost a parent a year or two before they start coming to the groups. It is up to the children when they want to start and stop.”
The increase in the size of the groups shows Beach that people are finally learning about and taking advantage of what Lost & Found offers. “There has always been the need, but people are just now seeing that there is the opportunity,” says Beach. “It’s great that people are realizing that we offer what we offer at Lost & Found.”
With all the success and growth, Lost & Found continues to help those going through a death the best way they can, through support.
“We have done a good job in the last 10 years of really staying focused on serving children and teens who have experienced a death of a parent or sibling,” says Askinosie. “The next phase for us is really exciting, because we are in a place where Karen can utilize her skill set that can help people all over the Midwest. Grief is something that never ends, but we hope that children and families will gain perspective on it and it will be incorporated in their lives in a healthy way.”
The 411
WHAT: Lost & Found’s Memorial Balloon Release and 5K run/walk
Lost & Found’s Memorial Balloon Release and 5K run/walk raises money for the grief center and allows the memories of loved ones to float gently towards to the sky. Participants in the balloon release come together for a brief, but meaningful ceremony to honor loved ones lost and then release environmentally friendly balloons to take flight. Last year the event raised $10,000. All the proceeds go to the grief center. Companies can also donate money to the center or purchase balloons for employees who have died.
WHEN: May 26, 5:45 p.m.
WHERE: Jordan Valley Park, 635 East
Trafficway Street, Springfield
COST: Balloons are $5
HOW TO GET TICKETS: For more information or to purchase balloons call 417-865-9998 or go to lostandfoundozarks.com.
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