Mourning Meeting

Shelby Forsythia (she/her) is the author of Your Grief, Your Way and Permission to Grieve and podcast host of Coming Back: Conversations on Life After Loss. Through a combination of practical tools and intuitive guidance, she helps grieving people reclaim their power and peace of mind after devastating loss. Her work has been featured on Huffington Post, Bustle, and The Oprah Magazine. We talk on the podcast about several losses she experienced in college. We explore how the death of her mom shaped her career and how she finally was able to examine the grief that she experienced years after the loss. 

Lisa Gitelson was born into a family where everyone did social work/social justice work.   She couldn't be prouder of the family that she came from, or more privileged to have grown up in an environment where everyone was able to do this type of work.  She started working in child welfare when she was 15 at a summer sleep away camp for children with behavioral special needs.  Once she did that, she knew that she wanted to spend her career working in child welfare and has been lucky enough to be able to do so.  Lisa has worked privately as an attorney representing child welfare organizations, worked as an attorney for NYC Children's Services, worked in house at a social service agency leading their foster care program and now works at the Council of Family and Child Caring Agencies, COFCCA, advocating for the child welfare organizations of New York.  She believes deeply in the power of the family, in the possibility for better and in change that brings better to the families that we serve.

Dr. Egan has a doctorate in school psychology and has specialized training in counseling and family-school relations. She established Charlotte Parent Coaching, LLC in 2011 and has also worked as an adjunct professor in the undergraduate department at two different colleges. She is the author of two books, Better Behavior for Ages 2-10 (Lesson Ladder, 2013) and Adolescence: A Parent's Guide (Rockridge Press, 2020). She co-hosts a podcast called One Day You'll Thank Me with her teenage daughter and works with clients on all sorts of transitions, including divorce.  

Litsa Williams MA, LCSW-C is a co-founder of the grief community What’s Your Grief.  Litsa received her master's degree in social work from The University of Maryland and has a master’s in Philosophy for The University of Warwick (UK). Litsa has been working in the field of grief and loss for 12 years and previously worked in homeless services in Baltimore, MD.  Before founding What’s Your Grief, Litsa supported patients and families in the hospital at end of life in circumstances of unexpected death, and provided ongoing grief and bereavement support in the years following the loss as the director of family and community services for the Living Legacy Foundation of Maryland.  Feeling frustrated with the online and print materials that were available for grievers, she co-founded What’s Your Grief as a resource offering concrete, practical, creative, down-to-earth, and relatable grief support.  What’s Your Grief offers in-person support including workshops, trainings, and support groups and online support including hundreds of articles on all topics around grief and loss, a weekly podcast, and online courses.  She has been interviewed as a grief expert for NPR, Washington Post, US News, The New York Times, Huffington Post, and the BBC.

To contact Litsa, reach out on social media @Whatsyourgrief or [email protected].

Janet Sarkos is the Executive Director of Caring Contact, a volunteer-staffed community of listeners that provides telephone support to people who are in need, either due to stress or suicidal thoughts.  Janet and I talk about how we all can be the support to people in our lives, even if we aren't therapists , when we are worried about someone's mental health. How do you start a conversation with someone if you are concerned? What if you feel like you aren't able to be the support they need? Who can you reach out to for support for yourself and for the person you are worried about? Listen to this week's episode for these answers and more.

To contact Janet directly, reach out to her at Caring Contact at www.caringcontact.org or call 908-301-1899. 

The listening line for non-emergencies is 908-232-2880. If you or someone you know is in crisis, please call 800-273-8255.

For international question, please contact www.councilforhelplines.org

For additional resources, reach out to the National Alliance on Mental Health at www.nami.org

The popularity of TMM Episode 8 revealed how much people want to hear about Robert Peace. So this week, we interviewed his uncle, Dante, about Robert's life and the lessons Dante learned from his death. Robert Peace was an accomplished student and athlete. He was well liked and had many friends.  The fact that his father was in jail for a double murder didn't seem to affect him. Or did it? No one asked.  And then he left for college with a full scholarship to Yale.  With such an amazing opportunity, no one thought to ask him what it was like to go from an inner city to Yale University, in a very different environment than he was used to.  After his death, Dante learned more about Robert's life and and reflects in the interview on some missed opportunities to check in with his nephew and offer support when it was needed. He wants to spread a message that we need to check in with people after trauma and loss, even if they look like they are doing well. 

Sam Levine and Ethan Cohen are students at Syracuse University in New York. They are both in quarantine due to being exposed to someone who tested positive for COVID-19. We talk about making the decision to attend school in person and how quarantine is being handled on their campus. They talk about what it's like to be alone in a hotel room for two weeks without any in-person human interaction and how their school is supporting them through this, both academically and emotionally.