Camp Widow® presenter: Melissa Henderson
Parenting through grief - from surviving to thriving
Join Melissa for a workshop about supporting children (aimed at early years and primary school age) who are experiencing grief and loss. This workshop will focus on providing really practical strategies that can be implemented .
Melissa will explore what you might experience through different ages and stages, ways to talk to your child about death and grief and why listening is actually your superpower.
Melissa will provide a resource list to participants and will also explore some self-care strategies for us, the grieving parents.
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About Melissa
Melissa Henderson is a Mum of two, a qualified Social Worker and Early Childhood Teacher. For the last 16 years she has worked in the Early Childhood Sector as a teacher, social and emotional learning coach and in a variety of senior leadership roles supporting children, educators and families.
Melissa’s husband died very suddenly in 2016, two weeks after what they thought was successful surgery to remove secondary brain tumours. Their children were eight and 11 and Melissa was one month away from turning 42.
Throughout her career Melissa has been a fierce advocate for early childhood wellbeing and children developing the skills they need to thrive but she is the first to say – “our new reality felt really painful and really hard. I had so many questions about how to support my own children through the excruciating pain of losing their Daddy. Parenting is hard at the best of times and parenting through grief sometimes feels like A LOT.”
Melissa did courses and threw herself into researching grief and is now a certified Grief Educator. She is looking forward to sharing some of the tools and strategies she has learnt, to help you and your children navigate this new world we find ourselves in.
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