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Date: 2/15/2023
WESTFIELD — Rick’s Place, a free grief support program for youth ages 5 to 18 and their caregivers, is partnering with the YMCA of Greater Westfield to offer services at its center.
Rick’s Place Executive Director Therese Ross said, “We have all of our volunteers trained and ready and our space at the YMCA set. We’re looking for families and reaching out to all of the area schools and community services to let people know that we’re coming.”
Rick’s Place is named after Rick Thorpe, who grew up in Wilbraham. Thorpe worked in New York and died in Tower 2 of the World Trade Center during the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. His family and friends recognized that there wasn’t enough support for families who had experienced the death of someone. In 2007, they decided to open a grief support organization in Wilbraham. Rick’s Place provides grief support services to families and peer grief groups in schools, and training to school and support agency staff on the impact of grief on students.
The organization does not provide therapy or counseling. It is a peer-support agency that encompasses a range of activities and interactions between youth and adults who have similar experiences, all which leads to building a strong sense of community.
Rick’s Place recently received a local fundraising boost by being included as one of three benefiting causes in the Western Massachusetts Charity Danceathon, which took place Feb. 3 and 4 at Blessed Sacrament Church in Westfield. It was already well known to some local residents, however.
“We have a number of families from Westfield who come to our program in Wilbraham,” Ross pointed out. “We have families from Huntington, Southwick, Agawam and it’s a long drive. The YMCA of Greater Westfield is a good central location to offer this free support for families.”
The organization also had several volunteers from Westfield and West Springfield. It only needed a physical base.
“We were in need of a space, so we can offer our free evening programming in Westfield, and the YMCA offered to collaborate,” Ross said. “The free programs for families take place two evenings a month. In Wilbraham, they happen on Tuesday evenings, and in Westfield they will be on Monday evenings from 6 to 7:15 p.m.”
Ross credited U.S. Rep. Richard Neal for taking an interest in Rick’s Place and helping it secure federal funding to help with the expansion into western Hampden County. Ross stated in Hampden County there are almost 5,000 young people who have experienced the death of a parent or sibling. That doesn’t even include the numbers from recent COVID-19 losses, an increase in substance use, or even address the number of children who’ve had friends die.
Children and teens grieve differently than adults do and, therefore, need different kinds of support, Ross said. Rick’s Place offer small groups in which youth can participate in activities, projects, and open discussion aimed at developing healthy coping skills during the grieving process. Participants are invited to share their personal experiences with grief, ask questions, and ultimately, provide support to one another as they become more able to understand their own grieving process.
“One of the things that we know about a family who has experienced a death is there’s a really strong sense of isolation and the feeling that other people don’t understand their experience,” Ross explained. “When they get together in a peer support group with other families who’ve had loss, there’s a sense of safety and community that develops quickly. Participants know that the other families at Rick’s Place and the staff and volunteers understand the loss experience. They get what it is to be a family who’s trying to live on while living without.”
The peer groups are divided by ages often into ages 5 to 8, ages 9 and 10, ages 11 and 12, and teens. Groups consist of between six and nine participants and are facilitated by two to three extensively trained volunteers. Their program is a proactive support model in which peers help one another to remember their loved ones, share hope, and alleviate the negative consequences of an unsupported grief journey.
“We want to support as many families as we possibly can,” Ross said. “To give them that sense of community that can come from being with trained volunteers who understand how to hold conversations with kids about death and loss.” She continued, “We support adults who are parenting children and teens who are grieving often while grieving themselves. Such support can be really essential to increasing success for kids. We want to help as many families as we can.”
The YMCA of Greater Westfield is at 67 Court St., Westfield. There is no cost for youth and their families to participate in the group at the YMCA or in Wilbraham. To learn more about Rick’s Place, visit ricksplacema.org or call 279-2010.