Guiding Principles

 

When a child dies everyone should be able to get the support they need. Every family, regardless of how their child died, where their child died or how old, deserves equal access to support.

Missing Pieces, a program of The HAP Foundation, partners with Chicagoland organizations to support people after a child dies. We want to help everyone who has experienced the loss of a child from perinatal through young adult deaths. including deaths from medical problems, trauma, suicide, homicide, or overdose.

Missing Pieces includes families of children who have died, healthcare professionals, academic organizations, hospice agencies, private practice, community-based organizations, grief support programs, the Medical Examiner’s office, and representation from Chicago Public Schools.

The defined mission of the coalition is to support the availability and quality of resources for those impacted by pediatric death through education, program development, research, and collaboration

 
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Our Goal

Improve access to bereavement support for those Impacted by the death of a Child.

 

In 2022, roughly 1,500 children and young adults will die in the Chicago, Cook County, and Suburban Cook County areas. Infant, child, and adolescent death as well as perinatal deaths reverberates broadly on the impact on families, schools, neighborhoods, faith-based communities, and healthcare providers. We estimate that Chicagoland pediatric deaths impact at least 5,500 people annually. Childhood death imposes special challenges for bereaved survivors who are at risk for complicated grief, depression, anxiety, poor physical health, and increased mortality. Unfortunately, Chicago suffers from inadequate access to and delivery of bereavement support services, leaving those affected by childhood death to grieve without help.

In response, we developed Missing Pieces: Sharing Support After Child Loss First projects prioritized by the coalition are:

  1. Develop and implement a centralized referral center that can create a tailored list of bereavement-specific services for those impacted by the death of a child and can be accessed by professionals, community members and parents in need of bereavement support services.

  2. Develop supportive education materials for grieving families interacting with the medical examiner’s office.

  3. Convene annual meetings to educate professionals about new innovations in providing bereavement support and create networking opportunities

  4. Conduct a literature review to inform knowledge gaps related to resource availability and efficacy.

Background

The death of a child creates a wave of emotional trauma that reverberates through marriages, families, schools, churches, sports teams, and entire communities. 57,000 children die in the United States each year. The death of one child can touch and shape the lives of at least 100 people meaningfully involved in some way with the child. Each year this leaves almost 6 million people across the Unities States feeling the pain of child loss. Unfortunately, numerous barriers limit access to high quality supportive services for people or organizations in need after a child dies. First, there are limited empirical data guiding best practices for the delivery bereavement support to those impacted by the death of a child. Second, service needs and access to services varies based on cause and location of the child’s death. Third, lack of knowledge about existing resources leave many services underutilized. As a result, there is a desperate need to develop and study interventions that improve care provided to those impacted by the death of a child.

Missing Pieces partners have a robust interest in collaborating to improve bereavement services for those impacted by pediatric death. There are clear areas in which a community coalition can address unmet bereavement support needs while enhancing efforts of professionals providing services to those impacted by pediatric loss.

Families:

We believe that people grieving or impacted by the death of an infant, child, or adolescent have unique needs. Our network helps you connect to individualized information, support, and other families.

Providers/Professionals:

We believe there are unique challenges to supporting families impacted by the death of an infant, child, or adolescent. Our network helps you connect your patients and clients to individualized information, support, and other families and gives you opportunities to network with other professionals.


Communities:

We believe that communities impacted by the death of an infant, child, or adolescent have unique needs. Our network helps your community connect to tailored/relevant information, support, and professionals.

Supporters:

We believe in the value of creating connections after child and perinatal loss. Through these connections we build awareness and support services fostering measurable change in families, communities and organizations. We invite those dedicated to this mission to join our efforts.

We are grateful for the funding support received from ARCC/Alliance for Research in Chicagoland Communities (Northwestern), Advocacy Grant/Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital and NAGC/National Alliance for Grieving Children.