Cathy Humphreys, Certified Child Life Specialist, an Associate Professor and Assistant Dean of the Master’s in Child Life and Pediatric Psychosocial Care Program in the Department of Pediatrics at McMaster University & Ceilidh Eaton, Certified Child Life Specialist, a lecturer in Child Life and Pediatric Psychosocial Care at McMaster University, and a PhD candidate in Family Relations and Human Development at the University of Guelph and Director of Research and Evaluation at the Dr. Jay Children’s Grief Centre in Toronto.
COVID-19 has drastically changed our way of life, giving rise to grief on a global scale in response to illness and death, separations from loved ones, financial insecurity, losses of control, safety, imagined futures, and many others. Although lately these have been referred to as “unprecedented times,” many children and families have grieved similar losses in the context of their own serious illnesses, and during the SARS outbreak. The insights and stories shared by children, families and health care providers in previous research and clinical settings can help us understand and support the complexity of grief currently being experienced in our COVID-shaped world.