A record-breaking turnout of nearly 300 supporters braved the stormy weather to take part in the 5th Annual Memories Walk and Fun Run.  Fortunately, the Medford Boat Club generously donated the use of their entire facility as well as their staff.  This kept us dry during some heavy downpours.

The rain paused and the sun tried really hard to poke its way out as we started our walk and run.  The rain held off as all of the friends, families and supporters made their way around the Mystic Upper Lakes.  It was a great sight to see everyone wearing their memory shirts, with the front logo “I’m walking for” filled in for each special person. We walked from Medford, through Winchester and Arlington and back to the Medford Boat Club.  Thank you to all the motorists who honked their support!

Donations can still be submitted on-line either through a team or directly at our site (indicate if you are supporting someone).

If you participated in the walk, please post comments here to share.

Recently, Children’s Room volunteer Karen Dillon was profiled in the on-line journal Boston Mama’s for her work as an artist entrepreneur and her program ArtisTRY.   What a wonderful profile of a great volunteer who has brought so much to our program and launched the highly successful “Art from the Heart” traveling art exhibit (which is mentioned in her profile).  The Boston Mama’s also provided a recent profile of The Children’s Room in July.

Let us know if you have any news to share.

On August 21, 2008 the award-winning documentary Space Between Breaths had its New England Premiere at the Regent Theatre in Arlington.  From The Boston Globe:

ON THURSDAY, Rosemary Smith’s documentary “Space Between Breaths,” about the sorrows of parents whose children die early and the process of healing, plays at the Regent Theatre in Arlington. Smith came to the project after her two oldest sons, both teenagers at the time, were killed in a car accident in 1992. Massachusetts native Cindy Bullens, who wrote the score for the documentary, will perform live before the movie. That’s at 7 p.m. (781-646-4849 and www. regenttheatre.com).

See our previous post.

Counselors and educators can never have too many hands-on, how-to techniques and strategies to respond to the needs of grieving children, teens and adults. Join us on Saturday, September 13, 2008 from 10am-2pm and learn new ways to utilize expressive arts therapies that encourage healthy coping strategies and enable youth and adults to not only to survive, but thrive. This workshop will link life crises with a variety of multi-cultural, multi-sensory, and imaginative approaches, and demonstrate healing for children, adolescents, and adults. Current program volunteers who are interested in attending this in-service must RSVP by Monday August 25, 2008. Space is limited so contact Colleen Shannon at cshannon@childrensroom.org to reserve your spot today!

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Multicultural Perspectives on Death & Grief:

A Conference for Caregivers, Researchers, & Educators

presented by

The National Center for Death Education, Mt. Ida College
The Hospice & Palliative Care Federation of MA
The New England AIDS Education Training Center
MGH Institute of Health Professions

Friday, September 19, 2008, 8 am to 5 pm
University of Massachusetts Boston - Campus Center

Loss is a universal human experience. Yet the experiences of death, dying and bereavement are profoundly influenced by the culture in which they occur. IWG is an international organization of scholars, researchers, and clinicians in thanatology.

Children’s Room Board of Directors member, Phyllis Silverman is a member of the International Working Group, and we are pleased to let everyone know about this great opportunity. Read more »

The Pregnancy Loss and Infant Death Alliance (PLIDA) has just issued three important documents on a very difficult topic. The cornerstone of the statements are that parents have the right to decide how much time, if any they may spend with their baby after he or she dies. They also have the right to decide whether or not they want to hold the child, regardless of the circumstances. The parents have the right to choose, regardless of the gestational age, too. PLIDA stresses the importance of having an empathetic and caring environment. It is an important time for families to receive support.

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In 2008 Tufts Health Plan launched the Tufts Health Plan Foundation.  The Foundation’s mission is to promote healthy lifestyles and the delivery of quality health care in our communities.

The Children’s Room is pleased to be one of the first grant recipients of this newly formed foundation.  The Foundation is supporting our efforts to bring our knowledge about grieving children, teens and families directly to communities.  Specifically, we will be expanding our training and workshop programs to reach teachers, youth workers, administrator, social workers and counselors in communities in Massachusetts such as Boston, Merrimack Valley, New Bedford, Springfield and others.

For families from the Greater Newburyport area who have experienced the death of a child of any age, the Compassionate Friends is a great resource for adult support groups, local memorials, and links to other website, including the national website for The Compassionate Friends. This site has even added a guest book and memory pages for families and friends to remember the children in their lives. Visit their site.

Other local chapters with websites include the North Shore, the chapter in Webster, MA which borders CT.

All chapters have annual memorial services, especially on the second Sunday in December when the chapters take part in the Worldwide Candle Lighting. This year’s will be on Sunday, December 14, 2008.

Welcome to our new website.

At The Children’s Room we have so much information to share, whether it be the latest studies on grieving children, new summer camp opportunities or just the latest on what is going on at the house. We wanted a website that could handle all this information and archive it so you can always find older information while we keep the home page fresh.

Aside from making our website easier to update, YOU can now be part of the site too. Each article has a comment section. Want to comment on the latest performance troupe show? Want to tell us why you like our Annual Memories Walk and Fun run? Want to share more info? Go ahead. (All comments will be cleared by our staff, so depending on what else we are doing, it may take a couple days for comments to appear.)

You can also stay up to date with The Children’s Room by subscribing to our RSS feed. What’s that?

So enjoy! We would like to extend a heartfelt thanks to Bryan Woody who brought our website into the light!

Or at least that’s what happened last October. Vandals knocked loose about a dozen large rocks from our historic stone retaining wall at The Children’s Room headquarters in Arlington. The wall is old and suffers from substantial water damage and patchwork repairs over the years.

Now the wall is going to be returned to its original glory! Thanks to a VERY generous capital donation from The Smith Family Foundation, The Children’s Room is tearing down the whole retaining wall, fixing drainage and restoring the wall to its original (but much improved) form.

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