January 10, 2025 • 11 mins
Children and young people dealing with grief, addiction, and other challenges often face an overwhelming mix of emotions, including confusion, fear, and isolation. Without proper support, these experiences can deeply affect their mental health, relationships, and development. Access to compassionate resources is vital for building resilience and fostering healing. In this episode, we speak with Sarah Behm, Assistant Director of the Eluna Resource Center, an organization dedicated to supporting children and families navigating these difficult journeys. Sarah shares insights into Eluna's mission, the resources they offer, and the importance of creating a supportive environment for those in need. Connect with Eluna:
·
Website: https://elunanetwork.org/eluna-resource-center/
·
Website: https://elunanetwork.org/eluna-resource-center/
- Facebook: facebook.com/elunanetwork
- TikTok: tiktok.com/@elunanetwork
- LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/elunanetwork
- YouTube: youtube.com/c/elunanetwork
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good morning, Welcome to Insight, a show about empowering our community.
I'm Lorraine Ballotmorrow. We're going to tell you about the
twenty twenty five Greater Philadelphia Martin Luther King Junior Day
of Service coming up on the twentieth, and a preview
of the annual African American Children's book Fair. But first,
children and young people navigating grief, addiction, and other challenges
often face a unique and overwhelming set of emotions, including confusion, fear,
(00:24):
and isolation. Without adequate support systems, these experiences can impact
their mental health, relationships and overall development. And that's why
we're speaking with Sarah Beams. She's assistant director of a
Luna Resource Center, an organization that supports children and families
with these issues, providing essential resources and programs to build
(00:45):
resilience and foster healing. Sarah, great to see you back again,
and you've got some new information about overdose deaths and
how that impacts children and teens.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Thanks to a wonderful funder they're called the Overdose per
mentioned in a Community Healing Fund, we were able to
do some research over the past several months about overdose deaths,
specifically in the five County, Greater Philadelphia region that we're
all a part of here and where our Luna is headquartered.
In this research, we were able to go back to
(01:18):
the most recent data, which is actually in twenty twenty three,
and what we found that in twenty twenty three we
lost eight and seventy two lives to overdose. This is
equivalent to an overdose death occurring every five hours in
our Philadelphia community. Just to put that in perspective, these
(01:39):
are right, These are our family members, our friends, our
loved ones that are dying to this drug crisis. So
what we were able to do is take some of
this data and really zoom in in this kind of
four page infographic with the goal to raise awareness about
what's happening here in the Philadelphia region and what we
can really do about it.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
I wonder if you can talk more about Certainly the
tragedy of losing people to overdose deaths is pretty tough.
Certainly there's a special kind of situation that occurs when
a parent or a guardian or a loved one is
addressing substance use disorder, right so when they lose that
(02:22):
close personal connection, there's so many more layers. I would
imagine to addressing the grief and the anxiety surrounding that.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Absolutely, yes, you know, overdose grief is really considered a
stigmatized type of loss or this enfranchised type of loss,
which means that as a society sometimes we really struggle
on how to support someone reading a loss to an overdose.
So that means people don't know how to talk about it.
It's not embraced publicly, it's not seen, it's not supported,
(02:55):
it's not as easy to talk about it, and that
makes it really hard for the children, teens, and family
who are grieving in overdose loss. So when we think
about how to support the campers at our camp and
all of the youth and family that reach out to us,
first we want to welcome them in and remove some
of maybe stigma and shame and judgment and really talk
(03:18):
openly about what kind of feelings they might experience, whether
it's real sadness, anger, guilt, shame, and really provide space
to process those really big, complex and layers feelings in
a comfortable space with some trusted adults. And we also
want to create space where we don't place judgment on
(03:39):
the person who died, right, So we don't want to
say words like addict, right, we want to stay away
from that. Instead, we want to say your person, your mom,
your dad was struggling with the disease of addiction, or
was struggling with substance use disorder. So really trying to
create a space where we're not going to place any
judgment on that family, family system and what they've been
going through, so that they can really feel welcome and
(03:59):
open to maybe express different feelings and challenges that they've
gone through. So those are some big key pointers that
we provide to our camp partners and all the families
that when we're supporting them and they're reaching out for help.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
Yeah, I'd like to circle back to the camps in
just a moment, because you do provide these wonderful opportunities,
this space for young people and children to get some
nurturing and resources and support and healing through your camps.
But I would like to talk a bit about the
distinct How does the grief of children, whether it's from
(04:33):
the death of person from a disease of any kind
or specifically through an overdose death, what distinguishes their process
or their grief from that of an adult, and how
do you address that specific kind of situation.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
Yes, that's a great question. And so first of all,
we recognize that all grief is unique. It's going to
be very different from a child to an adult, and
then child from child, different siblings can grieve very differently
as well. And then often within developmental stages and ages
of children, grief will evolve and change and there might
be different seasons of grief and it will look different.
(05:11):
So first we always want to prepare adults that are
caring for a child that the grief will change and
that sometimes there will be emotions that are such as
anger or kind of acting out or either acting in
that sometimes people might not at first think it's a
grief response, but often anger is a very common grief
(05:34):
response in children, So providing space to express that anger
in a safe way, in a comfortable way. And so
I think really just honoring the difference of each child,
each person, And we actually have some wonderful resources on
that about looking at some common grief responses from different
ages and stages for children, but always recognizing that each
(05:54):
child is going to be different in their own way.
So I think it's really about noticing, observing, creating space,
and our best to create unique and creative ways to
talk about the grief and provide spaces that can be
hard with overdose grief or a grief by suicide, right, So,
really trying to create opportunities to have conversations because that's
a big part of processing seeing those seasons of grief,
(06:16):
if that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
So you do have these camps and programs that provide
support and healing for kids. Tell us more about.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Those, Yeah, So I'll start with Camp Mariposa. So this
is a program we have right here in Philadelphia. It's
a year round addiction prevention and youth mentoring program for
ages nine to seventeen for youth who are affected by
the substance use of a family member. So at Camp Mariposa,
we have six camps per year. We have some education opportunities,
(06:47):
a lot of mentoring, a lot of support, but also
traditional fun camp activities and really the goal is to
build resiliency with our youth and to try to break
that cycle of addictions. We have a lot of data,
a lot of support that we provide to make sure
that our camps are successful. I just want to let
all of the listeners know right now in Philadelphia, we
(07:08):
actually have spots open right now at our camp Mariposa
and Philadelphia, which is kind of rare, so I really
recommend that you check it out. Our first camp is
coming up in just a couple weeks, but you can
kind of sign up anytime throughout the year. There will
be six camps this year, and when there's not a
camp weekend happening, we have events for the family members
as well in support system of that child. So all
(07:29):
of our camps are totally free, and that's kind of
our main one camp Mariposa. Camp Erin is a little different.
Camp Erin is our free weekend grief camp for youth
ages six to seventeen grieving the death of anyone important
to them in their lives. And it's for any type
of loss, including overdose loss, but it could be any
(07:51):
type of loss that they're experiencing and processing. So camp
Erin usually happens in the summer in Philadelphia. Our site's
still setting their dates and this camp does fill up
really fast, so I do recommend even if they don't
have their dates that are set yet, that if you're interested,
that you go ahead and fill out the information form
and get that process started. And again as a reminder,
(08:13):
all of our camps and programs are completely free of
charge to our Pennsylvania families, right, so we really welcome
in anyone to check it out, learn a little bit
about it, ask questions, and sign up if you're interested.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Back to your information related to overdose deaths, do you
also suggest any interventions that might be helpful that might
prevent those deaths from happening.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Yeah, So, one really interesting finding in the research we
did for this infographic is that sixty five percent of
Philadelphia County overdose deaths had at least one opportunity for intervention.
And what does that mean. That could be, for example,
the presence of a bystander at the time of death,
It could be evidence of a substance use treatment, maybe
(09:00):
the evidence of a mental health diagnosis, or even a
recent urgent care visit of that person who died. So
this just shines light on there are opportunities for intervention
in ways that we can improve and enhance how we're
supporting our community to support individuals struggling with substance use disorder.
And then you look at the other side of that
(09:22):
is really the prevention side, and that is really where
Aluna comes in. That's our goal. Right at A Luna
we really support the children and youth affected by a
family member of substance use disorder. We find in our
camps we have all different types of campers and one
of our type of campers are campers that are involved
right now in the foster care system. And we did
find that one in five foster care youth in Philadelphia
(09:44):
County have entered the foster care system due to alcohol
or drug use in the family, and we definitely see
this at our camps. So this is another opportunity to
think about prevention and support for the children and teens
that are affected by this national drug crisis.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
Well, you have some many resources, the two camps Aaron
and Mariposa extraordinary opportunities to provide healing and support for
children and teens experiencing grief, whether it's from the loss
of a loved one through suicide, through disease, through substance
use disorder. A Luna is there. So if people want
more information, how do they find out more?
Speaker 2 (10:20):
I definitely recommend coming to our website first, It's a
lunanetwork dot org. When you go to our website, click
on find support and then click on personalized support. That's
where I come in. So you're welcome to reach out
to me directly through that personalized support button, and I
will provide you with specific recommendations on what camps will
(10:41):
meet your family needs based on the age of the child,
the type of lost or whatever else you might be
experiencing in your family, so I can really guide and
support you to the right programs and resources that we
can support you with. So that's the first step. Come
to our website. On the website too, you'll find a form,
you'll find my email. You're welcome to email need directly.
My name is Sarah again, and I'm really here to
(11:02):
support and welcome anyone here that's listening into our programs
and resources.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Fantastic. Sarah Bean, assistant director of the Aluna Resource Center.
Thanks so much, Thanks Loride. We'll have more insight after
these messages.
Good morning, Welcome to Insight, a show about empowering our community.
I'm Lorraine Ballotmorrow. We're going to tell you about the
twenty twenty five Greater Philadelphia Martin Luther King Junior Day
of Service coming up on the twentieth, and a preview
of the annual African American Children's book Fair. But first,
children and young people navigating grief, addiction, and other challenges
often face a unique and overwhelming set of emotions, including confusion, fear,
(00:24):
and isolation. Without adequate support systems, these experiences can impact
their mental health, relationships and overall development. And that's why
we're speaking with Sarah Beams. She's assistant director of a
Luna Resource Center, an organization that supports children and families
with these issues, providing essential resources and programs to build
(00:45):
resilience and foster healing. Sarah, great to see you back again,
and you've got some new information about overdose deaths and
how that impacts children and teens.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Thanks to a wonderful funder they're called the Overdose per
mentioned in a Community Healing Fund, we were able to
do some research over the past several months about overdose deaths,
specifically in the five County, Greater Philadelphia region that we're
all a part of here and where our Luna is headquartered.
In this research, we were able to go back to
(01:18):
the most recent data, which is actually in twenty twenty three,
and what we found that in twenty twenty three we
lost eight and seventy two lives to overdose. This is
equivalent to an overdose death occurring every five hours in
our Philadelphia community. Just to put that in perspective, these
(01:39):
are right, These are our family members, our friends, our
loved ones that are dying to this drug crisis. So
what we were able to do is take some of
this data and really zoom in in this kind of
four page infographic with the goal to raise awareness about
what's happening here in the Philadelphia region and what we
can really do about it.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
I wonder if you can talk more about Certainly the
tragedy of losing people to overdose deaths is pretty tough.
Certainly there's a special kind of situation that occurs when
a parent or a guardian or a loved one is
addressing substance use disorder, right so when they lose that
(02:22):
close personal connection, there's so many more layers. I would
imagine to addressing the grief and the anxiety surrounding that.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Absolutely, yes, you know, overdose grief is really considered a
stigmatized type of loss or this enfranchised type of loss,
which means that as a society sometimes we really struggle
on how to support someone reading a loss to an overdose.
So that means people don't know how to talk about it.
It's not embraced publicly, it's not seen, it's not supported,
(02:55):
it's not as easy to talk about it, and that
makes it really hard for the children, teens, and family
who are grieving in overdose loss. So when we think
about how to support the campers at our camp and
all of the youth and family that reach out to us,
first we want to welcome them in and remove some
of maybe stigma and shame and judgment and really talk
(03:18):
openly about what kind of feelings they might experience, whether
it's real sadness, anger, guilt, shame, and really provide space
to process those really big, complex and layers feelings in
a comfortable space with some trusted adults. And we also
want to create space where we don't place judgment on
(03:39):
the person who died, right, So we don't want to
say words like addict, right, we want to stay away
from that. Instead, we want to say your person, your mom,
your dad was struggling with the disease of addiction, or
was struggling with substance use disorder. So really trying to
create a space where we're not going to place any
judgment on that family, family system and what they've been
going through, so that they can really feel welcome and
(03:59):
open to maybe express different feelings and challenges that they've
gone through. So those are some big key pointers that
we provide to our camp partners and all the families
that when we're supporting them and they're reaching out for help.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
Yeah, I'd like to circle back to the camps in
just a moment, because you do provide these wonderful opportunities,
this space for young people and children to get some
nurturing and resources and support and healing through your camps.
But I would like to talk a bit about the
distinct How does the grief of children, whether it's from
(04:33):
the death of person from a disease of any kind
or specifically through an overdose death, what distinguishes their process
or their grief from that of an adult, and how
do you address that specific kind of situation.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
Yes, that's a great question. And so first of all,
we recognize that all grief is unique. It's going to
be very different from a child to an adult, and
then child from child, different siblings can grieve very differently
as well. And then often within developmental stages and ages
of children, grief will evolve and change and there might
be different seasons of grief and it will look different.
(05:11):
So first we always want to prepare adults that are
caring for a child that the grief will change and
that sometimes there will be emotions that are such as
anger or kind of acting out or either acting in
that sometimes people might not at first think it's a
grief response, but often anger is a very common grief
(05:34):
response in children, So providing space to express that anger
in a safe way, in a comfortable way. And so
I think really just honoring the difference of each child,
each person, And we actually have some wonderful resources on
that about looking at some common grief responses from different
ages and stages for children, but always recognizing that each
(05:54):
child is going to be different in their own way.
So I think it's really about noticing, observing, creating space,
and our best to create unique and creative ways to
talk about the grief and provide spaces that can be
hard with overdose grief or a grief by suicide, right, So,
really trying to create opportunities to have conversations because that's
a big part of processing seeing those seasons of grief,
(06:16):
if that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
So you do have these camps and programs that provide
support and healing for kids. Tell us more about.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Those, Yeah, So I'll start with Camp Mariposa. So this
is a program we have right here in Philadelphia. It's
a year round addiction prevention and youth mentoring program for
ages nine to seventeen for youth who are affected by
the substance use of a family member. So at Camp Mariposa,
we have six camps per year. We have some education opportunities,
(06:47):
a lot of mentoring, a lot of support, but also
traditional fun camp activities and really the goal is to
build resiliency with our youth and to try to break
that cycle of addictions. We have a lot of data,
a lot of support that we provide to make sure
that our camps are successful. I just want to let
all of the listeners know right now in Philadelphia, we
(07:08):
actually have spots open right now at our camp Mariposa
and Philadelphia, which is kind of rare, so I really
recommend that you check it out. Our first camp is
coming up in just a couple weeks, but you can
kind of sign up anytime throughout the year. There will
be six camps this year, and when there's not a
camp weekend happening, we have events for the family members
as well in support system of that child. So all
(07:29):
of our camps are totally free, and that's kind of
our main one camp Mariposa. Camp Erin is a little different.
Camp Erin is our free weekend grief camp for youth
ages six to seventeen grieving the death of anyone important
to them in their lives. And it's for any type
of loss, including overdose loss, but it could be any
(07:51):
type of loss that they're experiencing and processing. So camp
Erin usually happens in the summer in Philadelphia. Our site's
still setting their dates and this camp does fill up
really fast, so I do recommend even if they don't
have their dates that are set yet, that if you're interested,
that you go ahead and fill out the information form
and get that process started. And again as a reminder,
(08:13):
all of our camps and programs are completely free of
charge to our Pennsylvania families, right, so we really welcome
in anyone to check it out, learn a little bit
about it, ask questions, and sign up if you're interested.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Back to your information related to overdose deaths, do you
also suggest any interventions that might be helpful that might
prevent those deaths from happening.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Yeah, So, one really interesting finding in the research we
did for this infographic is that sixty five percent of
Philadelphia County overdose deaths had at least one opportunity for intervention.
And what does that mean. That could be, for example,
the presence of a bystander at the time of death,
It could be evidence of a substance use treatment, maybe
(09:00):
the evidence of a mental health diagnosis, or even a
recent urgent care visit of that person who died. So
this just shines light on there are opportunities for intervention
in ways that we can improve and enhance how we're
supporting our community to support individuals struggling with substance use disorder.
And then you look at the other side of that
(09:22):
is really the prevention side, and that is really where
Aluna comes in. That's our goal. Right at A Luna
we really support the children and youth affected by a
family member of substance use disorder. We find in our
camps we have all different types of campers and one
of our type of campers are campers that are involved
right now in the foster care system. And we did
find that one in five foster care youth in Philadelphia
(09:44):
County have entered the foster care system due to alcohol
or drug use in the family, and we definitely see
this at our camps. So this is another opportunity to
think about prevention and support for the children and teens
that are affected by this national drug crisis.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
Well, you have some many resources, the two camps Aaron
and Mariposa extraordinary opportunities to provide healing and support for
children and teens experiencing grief, whether it's from the loss
of a loved one through suicide, through disease, through substance
use disorder. A Luna is there. So if people want
more information, how do they find out more?
Speaker 2 (10:20):
I definitely recommend coming to our website first, It's a
lunanetwork dot org. When you go to our website, click
on find support and then click on personalized support. That's
where I come in. So you're welcome to reach out
to me directly through that personalized support button, and I
will provide you with specific recommendations on what camps will
(10:41):
meet your family needs based on the age of the child,
the type of lost or whatever else you might be
experiencing in your family, so I can really guide and
support you to the right programs and resources that we
can support you with. So that's the first step. Come
to our website. On the website too, you'll find a form,
you'll find my email. You're welcome to email need directly.
My name is Sarah again, and I'm really here to
(11:02):
support and welcome anyone here that's listening into our programs
and resources.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Fantastic. Sarah Bean, assistant director of the Aluna Resource Center.
Thanks so much, Thanks Loride. We'll have more insight after
these messages.
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