ABSTRACT

The death of a significant family member has long been recognized as a major stressor on a family, especially when the deceased is a child’s primary caregiver. Krupnick and Solomon (1987, as cited in Piper, McCallum, & Azim, 1992) suggest that the risk factors for future development of pathological grief are the death of a parent, or significant caregiver, before a child reaches the age of five; during early adolescence for boys whose fathers die; or for girls under age eleven whose mothers die. The Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services’ (JBFCS) Loss and Bereavement (L&B) group model (Schilling, Koh, Abramovitz, & Gilbert, 1992; Schoeman & Kreitzman, 1997) was first implemented in 1987. The outcomes for families treated in this model suggest that children do experience the death of their significant caregiver(s) as a traumatic event.