Virtual Learning Library
The Trauma and Grief (TAG) Center's Virtual Learning Library offers free webinars and resources focusing on childhood trauma and grief to key audiences: parents and caregivers, mental health clinicians, educators, health care providers, law enforcement, and other professionals working with children and adolescents who have experienced trauma and loss.
A Special Thanks
The Virtual Learning Library was developed with philanthropic investment from our partner, the New York Life Foundation.
Featured Resources
How to Help Children After a Mass Shooting
Guidance and tips for parents and caregivers on talking to youth and helping decrease their distress in the aftermath of a school shooting.
Grief & Post-Traumatic Stress Screening Tools for Youth
Are you worried about a child who is grieving or experienced a potentially traumatic event? The following scales, the Prolonged Grief Disorder -Short Form and the UCLA Post-Traumatic Stress Reaction Index Very Brief Form, were designed to screen for grief and post-traumatic stress reactions among children and adolescents. These scales can help to determine which children may need a more thorough evaluation and/or treatment.
Tag Coalition Roster
With support from the New York Life Foundation, the TAG Center continues to build its “TAG Coalition” of clinicians who have been trained in an evidence-based intervention, Trauma and Grief Component Therapy and/or Multidimensional Grief Therapy. The following individuals from across the country have completed all of the training requirements and are equipped to address the mental health needs of youth exposed to trauma and/or loss.
Trauma & Grief Focused Webinars
Multicultural Practices in Grief Therapy
In this training session, Oscar Widales-Benitez, senior clinical implementation specialist at the Trauma and Grief Center, provides a multicultural framework to help inform treatments for children and adolescents who have experienced bereavement.
Audiences
One Size Does Not Fit All: A New, Flexible Approach to Supporting Grieving Children
A Children’s Grief Awareness Month Webinar with Dr. Julie Kaplow
One size does not fit all when it comes to the nature and treatment of children’s grief. Executive Director of our Trauma and Grief Center Dr. Julie Kaplow-Kline discusses this and other findings from her new book, “Multidimensional Grief Therapy: A Flexible Approach to Assessing and Supporting Bereaved Youth,” in a live webinar held on Thursday, November 2 to mark Children’s Grief Awareness Month.
Audiences
Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Grief, but Were Afraid to Ask
Grief is a natural response to loss and an unavoidable part of life, but it can sometimes feel all-encompassing and take on many forms. Dr. Julie Kaplow, executive director of our Trauma and Grief Center, provides her insight and expertise on the topic of grief in a live webinar held on August 30 to mark National Grief Awareness Day.
Audiences
Supporting Children in the Aftermath of Tragedy
This training shares ways caregivers and educators can support children in the aftermath of a traumatic event, including mass violence, and provides strategies to promote resilience in those helping to support children.
Audiences
Supporting Immigrant Youth Exposed to Trauma & Loss
How do we support immigrant youth exposed to trauma and loss? This webinar provides an overview of trauma and grief and explores the importance of distinguishing between the two. Dr. Mendez discusses the unique needs of immigrant youth and clinical implications for mental health providers working with them.
Audiences
Apoyando a Jóvenes Inmigrantes Expuestos a Trauma y Pérdidas
¿Cómo apoyamos a los jóvenes inmigrantes expuestos al trauma y pérdidas? Este seminario web proporciona una descripción general del trauma y el duelo y explora la importancia de distinguir entre los dos. La Dra. Méndez examina las necesidades únicas de los jóvenes inmigrantes y las implicaciones clínicas para los proveedores de salud mental que trabajan con esta población.
Audiences
Supporting Students Exposed to Trauma & Grief: Tips for Teachers
What exactly does it mean to be “trauma- and grief-informed”? This presentation seeks to answer this question and more, providing concrete strategies for teachers to implement in their classroom to help create a safe environment that fosters resilience and connections with students.
Audiences
The Cost of Caring: Supporting the Supporters
During the COVID-19 pandemic, educators, mental health clinicians, and health care providers have had the strenuous task of caring for their students, clients, or patients, while caring for their own families and themselves. This presentation explores the ways our work as helping professionals impacts us individually. Participants will be given tools to decrease the risk for compassion fatigue, vicarious trauma, secondary traumatic stress, and burn-out.
Audiences
Manifestations of Grief in Children & Adolescents: Applications for Pediatricians
How do we best support a child who is grieving? This training explores key considerations for health care providers working with bereaved youth and their families.
Audiences
Understanding & Supporting Grieving Youth: A Scientist-Practitioner Approach
A “one-size-fits-all” approach to grief support is typically ineffective. Professionals must decide which type of grief support and practice elements are most appropriate based on the unique needs and strengths of the children they serve. This workshop describes specific bereavement-related challenges that youth typically face after the death of a loved one and reviews evidence-based practices that can support them.
Audiences
Addressing Childhood Trauma & Grief to Promote Child & Family Resilience
This presentation examines how trauma and grief reactions manifest in children and adolescents, especially in the context of the pandemic, and how they impact learning and behavior, particularly within under-resourced communities. Dr. Kaplow provides guidance to educators, youth-serving organizations, and caregivers about trauma- and grief-informed best practices.
Audiences
Handle With Care Program Trainings
Handle With Care Program: for Educators and School-based Clinicians
The Handle With Care program helps identify and address trauma and grief in schools. This webinar for educators provides an introduction to the program, a high-level overview of how trauma and grief present in the classroom, and information on strategies for supporting students.
Audiences
Handle With Care Program: for Non-instructional School Staff
The Handle With Care program helps identify and address trauma and grief in schools. This webinar for educators provides an introduction to the program, a high-level overview of how trauma and grief present in the classroom, and information on strategies for supporting students.
Audiences
Identificando y Abordando el Trauma y el Duelo en las Escuelas: El Programa Tratar con Cuidado
Este seminario web para el personal escolar no-instructivo brinda una descripción general del Programa Tratar con Cuidado, incluyendo los antecedentes y la justificación, e información sobre estrategias para apoyar a los estudiantes que han sido expuestos a traumas y/o pérdidas.
Audiences
Handle With Care Program: for Law Enforcement
The Handle With Care program helps identify and address trauma and grief in schools. This webinar for law enforcement provides an overview of the program, including its background and rationale.
Audiences
TAG Center Handouts
Five Signs a Grieving Child May Need Extra Help
Every child expresses their grief differently, however, sometimes youth feel especially “stuck” in their grief. This handout helps caregivers identify when a grieving child or adolescent may need a higher level of support.
Audiences
How to Help Children After a School Shooting
This resource offers guidance and tips for parents and caregivers on talking to youth and helping decrease their distress in the aftermath of a school shooting.
Audiences
Guidelines for Caregivers Supporting Grieving Youth
This handout developed by the Trauma and Grief Center is for parents, caregivers, or other adults seeking to help bereaved youth after the death of a loved one.
Audiences
Power of Parenting Series
The following Power of Parenting series is co-sponsored by the New York Life Foundation and the National Child Traumatic Stress Network. In partnership with researchers, clinicians, and individuals with lived experience, Dr. Julie Kaplow-Kline-Kline developed these resources to help parents and caregivers support children facing bereavement, including in the context of the pandemic.
Helping Your Child After a Family Homicide Loss
Guidance for caregivers on addressing the homicide death of a loved one including how to help youth cope with disenfranchised grief and systemic injustices that can lead to “invisible losses”.
Audiences
Helping Children Cope with the Impending Death of a Loved One
Guidance for caregivers on addressing the impending death of a loved one due to COVID-19 including anticipating a death, preparing a child for the death, and saying goodbye.
Audiences
Addressing Fears & Feelings from Prior Losses
Fact sheet for caregivers about addressing fears and feelings from prior losses that could arise during the COVID-19 pandemic including information on loss and trauma reminders, coping with separation, and the mind-body connection.
Audiences
Mourning the Death of a Loved One
Caregiver guidance on mourning the death of a loved one due to COVID-19 offering information on saying goodbye when you couldn’t be there, understanding developmental differences in behaviors associated with grief, and seeking alternative support if needed.
Audiences
Talking to Your Child About a Suicide Death
This fact sheet for parents and caregivers offers guidance on talking to children about a suicide death including preparing to tell children about a suicide death, helping them grieve in healthy ways, and recognizing when a child may need additional support.
Audiences
How to Help Your Child After the Death of a Sibling from Substance Use or Overdose
Fact sheet for caregivers offers guidance on supporting their surviving children after the death of a sibling due to substance use or overdose. Information includes helping children cope with stigma and shame, understanding the wide range of reactions that family members may experience, coping with how substance use influences the family over time, adapting to loss, and prioritizing self-care and support for the parents or caregivers.
Audiences
Trauma & Grief Center Empirical Papers
This sampling of research studies led by the Trauma and Grief Center team provides the basis for our work in developing, evaluating, and disseminating best practices and policies for youth exposed to trauma and bereavement:
- Hoppe, R., Alvis, L., Oosterhoff, B., & Kaplow J. (2024) Caregiver behaviors associated with positive youth development among bereaved children. Death Studies.
- Alvis, L., Oosterhoff, B., Giang, C., Kaplow, J.B. (2023) A pilot open trial of an individualized adaptation of Trauma and Grief Component Therapy (TGCT) in children and adolescents. Child Youth Care Forum.
- Clow, S., Olafson, E., Ford, J., Moser, M., Slivinsky, M. and Julie Kaplow, J. B. (2023). Addressing Grief Reactions Among Incarcerated Adolescents and Young Adults Using Trauma and Grief Component Therapy. American Psychological Association 2023, Vol. 15, No. S1, S192–S200
- Alvis, L., Dodd, C., Oosterhoff, B., Hill, R., Rolon-Arroyo, B., Logsdon, T., Layne, C., & Kaplow, J. B. (2020). Caregiver behaviors and childhood maladaptive grief: Initial validation of the Grief Facilitation Inventory. Death Studies.
- Dodd, C. Hill, R., Oosterhoff, B., Layne, C.M., & Kaplow, J.B. (2019). The Hurricane Exposure, Adversity, and Recovery Tool (HEART): Developing and validating a risk screening instrument for youth exposed to Hurricane Harvey. Journal of Family Strengths, 19(1), 1-28.
- Douglas, R., Alvis, L., Rooney, E., Busby, D., & Kaplow, J. (2021) Racial, ethnic, and neighborhood income disparities in childhood trauma and grief reactions: Exploring potential indirect effects through trauma and bereavement exposure. Journal of Traumatic Stress.
- Hill, R., Oosterhoff, B., Layne, C., Rooney, E., Yudovich, S., Pynoos, R., & Kaplow, J. (2019). Multidimensional Grief Therapy: Pilot open trial of a novel intervention for bereaved children and adolescents. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 28(11), 3062-3074.
- Kaplow, J.B., Howell, K.H. & Layne, C.M. (2014). Do circumstances of the death matter? Identifying socioenvironmental risks for grief-related psychopathology in bereaved youth. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 27(1), 42-49.
- Kaplow, J. B., Layne, C., Oosterhoff, B., Goldenthal, H., Howell, K., Wamser‐Nanney, R., … Pynoos, R. (2018). Validation of the Persistent Complex Bereavement Disorder (PCBD) Checklist: A developmentally informed assessment tool for bereaved youth. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 31(2), 244–254.
- Kaplow, J.B., Layne, C.M., Saltzman, W.R., Cozza, S.J., & Pynoos, R.S. (2013). Using Multidimensional Grief Theory to explore effects of deployment, reintegration, and death on military youth and families. Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review, 16, 322-340.
- Kaplow, J.B., Rolon-Arroyo, B., Layne, C.M., Rooney, E., Oosterhoff, B., Hill, R., Steinberg, A., Lotterman, J., Gallagher, K., & Pynoos, R.S. (2020). Validation of the UCLA PTSD Reaction Index for DSM-5 (RI-5): A developmentally-informed assessment tool for trauma-exposed youth. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 59(1), 186-194.
- Kaplow, J.B., Wamser-Nanney, R., Layne, C.M., Burnside, A., King, C., Li-Jung, L., Steinberg, A., Briggs, E., Suarez, L., & Pynoos, R. (2020). Identifying bereavement-related markers of mental and behavioral health problems among clinic-referred adolescents. Psychiatric Research and Clinical Practice. doi.org/10.1176/appi.prcp.20190021
- Oosterhoff, B., Kaplow, J. B., & Layne, C. (2018). Links between bereavement due to sudden death and academic functioning: Results from a nationally representative sample of adolescents. School Psychology Quarterly, 33(3), 372–380.