This article is originally from PCAeNews.
Louise Blessington received a call late one night, where her dad told her that he was dying from liver cancer. He then passed away six weeks later, after her family got back to Australia.
She found there to be little support for kids who’d lost parents as the teen cancer support group, CanTeen, she joined, had a cut-off age of 24. She then set up the ACT Young People’s Bereavement Network, with just over $1500 from the ACT Government, for people aged between 16 and 30. A formal counselling session with counsellor Mandy Cox, where she talks about the process of getting over loss, makes up the first half of the group meetings.
Mandy said that young people are often reluctant to talk about death but they can feel the loss more deeply. She also pointed out that young people lack role models in the community who talks about loss in an open, honest way. Louise reckons grief is just another part of life and learning how to cope with it makes it easier to move forward.
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