RESOURCES
Online resources, support and connection for grieving parents and families.
Help Texts
We are pleased to announce that we will be offering complimentary subscriptions to HelpTexts, a program that provides messages of support for those who are grieving via text. These messages are expert-written (not AI-driven) and curated from the wisdom of over 100 world-leading experts, including nurses, doctors, therapists, thanatologists, social workers, and neuroscientists. This clinically sound resource sends tailored messages straight to the subscriber’s phone.
HelpTexts’ founder, Emma Payne, built North America’s first online crisis intervention line and founded a groundbreaking international organization focused on women & technology, that broke boundaries and developed leaders for 17 years. We are pleased to have partnered with Emma and HelpTexts and to be providing this opportunity to our community thanks to a grant provided by one of our supporters. Our belief is that it will be a helpful resource in fulfilling our mission to offer emotional support to those grieving the loss of a young child. More details will be available in an upcoming blog post.
This service is available at no cost for three months for those who are grieving the unexpected loss of a child (stillborn to 12 years old). In less than five minutes, you can sign up to begin receiving personalized text messages written by grief experts. You’ll get ongoing support twice a week, along with messages on meaningful days like birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays.
The Healing Shelf
We are honored to introduce a new blog series, The Healing Shelf. This series is dedicated to exploring books that speak to the realities of grief including its weight and complexity. Our hope is that these stories, reflections, and perspectives may serve as companions and may offer language for the indescribable, for the moments of recognition, or simply the reassurance that no one is alone in their sorrow. If you have a book that you would like to share and review for our series, please reach out to Danielle at danielle@buzzysbees.com.
Our book reviews:
A Heart That Works – Rob Delaney
Things in Nature Merely Grow – Yiyun Li
Normal Broken – Kelly Cervantes
More recommended reading:
Grief Day by Day – Jan Warner
Healing a Grandparent’s Grieving Heart – Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D
Healing a Parent’s Grieving Heart – Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D
Once More We Saw Stars – Jayson Greene
Option B – Sheryl Sandburg
Surviving My First Year of Child Loss – Nathalie Himmelrich
Our bookshelf at Bookshop.org:
https://bookshop.org/lists/the-healing-shelf
Buzzy’s will receive a small portion of the proceeds when books are purchased through our profile.
Funeral Cost Assistance
Final Farewell
Final Farewell helps families provide an affordable funeral for a loved child. We provide financial assistance, advice and guidance. We’ve helped families from all religions and backgrounds. Your donation enables us to offer the enormous gift of a decent burial and a proper good-bye.
Tears Foundation
The TEARS Foundation seeks to compassionately lift a financial burden from families who have lost a child by providing funds to assist with the cost of burial or cremation services. We also offer parents comprehensive bereavement care in the form of grief support groups and peer companions.
Grief Support
Brief Encounters
Brief Encounters is a nonprofit, nonsectarian group for parents whose babies have died before, during, or after birth. Brief Encounters provides meetings in the greater Portland, Oregon area and local phone support. At informal, mutually supportive meetings, bereaved parents and their families share their stories, discuss issues that arise around pregnancy and infant loss, and remember their children. Through talking or just listening, we learn what grief is and how, through understanding and caring, we heal.
The Comfort Cub
The Comfort Cub is a therapeutic teddy bear designed to help the empty arms that accompany losing a child. Founder Marcella Johnson’s son George died six hours after birth, 22 years ago. The mission of The Comfort Cub is to bring comfort to anyone experiencing a broken heart as a result of a significant loss or trauma.
Compassionate Friends
When a child dies, at any age, the family suffers intense pain and may feel hopeless and isolated. The Compassionate Friends provides highly personal comfort, hope, and support to every family experiencing the death of a son or a daughter, a brother or a sister, or a grandchild, and helps others better assist the grieving family.
MISS Foundation
MISS Foundation offers online support, has face-to-face support groups in certain areas, and HOPE Mentors available all over the world. There is a network of Compassionate Bereavement Care providers who are specifically trained in traumatic grief who may be available to offer support services in your community. There are resources for families with specialty information for dads, grandparents, and siblings. For professionals, there is information on our workshops, resources, and speakers available to present about many topics relating to child death. Founded by Dr. Joanne Cacciatore, grieving mom and Professor of Traumatic Grief at Arizona State University.
Return to Zero: H.O.P.E
RTZ HOPE is a national non-profit organization that provides holistic support, resources and community for all people who have experienced unimaginable loss during the journey to parenthood.
Seattle Children’s Journey’s Program
The Journey Program is for any family who has experienced the death of a child. It provides support to help families cope with death, loss, and the grieving process.
SUDC Foundation
The SUDC Foundation supports awareness, advocates for research, and supports those affected by sudden unexpected or unexplained death in childhood.
Grief Support for Surviving Siblings
Bereaved Parents of the USA – Help for Siblings
A section of the website of Bereaved Parents of the USA focuses specifically on help for siblings who grieve.
Dougy Center
The Dougy Center provides support in a safe place where children, teens, young adults, and their families grieving a death can share their experiences. They provide support and training locally, nationally, and internationally to individuals and organizations seeking to assist children in grief.
Eluna
Eluna supports children and families impacted by grief or addiction. Their innovative resources and programs address the critical needs of children experiencing powerful, overwhelming and often confusing emotions associated with the death of someone close to them or substance abuse in their family. No child should have to face these struggles alone, and their unique programs bring kids together to ease their pain and provide the tools to help restore hope.
National Alliance for Grieving Children
The alliance is a national organization of professionals dedicated to supporting children and the networks and communities surrounding them. Through the collective voice of our members and partners, we educate, advocate and raise awareness about childhood bereavement.
Blogs
A Bed For My Heart
Just Playing House
Buzzy’s Bees
Modern Loss
Spaces Between You
Still Standing Magazine
Helpful articles, blogs, and writing that cover every subject imaginable related to losing a pregnancy, infant, or child, often suddenly and unexpectedly.
Podcasts
A Good Cry (Michael Cruz Kayne)
Grief Out Loud (Dougy Center)
Moms Don’t Have Time to Grieve (Kelsey Chittick)
Andy’s Mom (Marcy Larson)