Health trends

• Workshop for the grieving child

A workshop, 'Helping the Grieving Child', will be hosted on October 4 at the Caenwood Centre Auditorium in Kingston. The workshop, to be hosted by Survivors Unlimited and the Violence Prevention Alliance, will see local and international experts addressing issues intended to sensitise participants to the ways in which children grieve differently from adults, and specifically how some of these responses to grief may manifest as aggressive or antisocial behaviours.

"The issue of assisting children to cope with grief has become even more urgent and compelling in recent times. As the incidence of death increases in schools, it has become necessary to look at the phenomenon at the institutional as well as individual levels, said Lorraine Jones, head of Survivors Unlimited and convenor of the workshop.

Jones, herself a homicide survivor, pointed out that many affected children are not in positions to access required counselling and felt it was, therefore, necessary to sensitise as many professionals who work with children as possible.

For further information visit www.wix.com/jaevents/grievingchild or call (876) 796-0004.