Quick Links
Support Groups
The following support groups are offered at various times throughout the year. Please refer to the Calendar of Events to view dates and times offered.
Ongoing Grief Support Group (evening and daytime)
An open-ended, self-help group designed to provide support to individuals who have experienced the death of a loved one. This group provides a safe place where group members can share their story and express their grief.
Children's Bereavement Art Group
This 6-week, closed-ended group will be offered for children from 10-13 years of age. This group is for any child that has lost a loved one. The group will help children learn to cope with and accept the death of a loved one by encouraging them to express their grief through creative outlets. The artwork children create through drawing or painting becomes something tangible into which the children can put their feelings.
Spousal/Partner Support Group
An 8-week, closed-ended educational and emotional support group for those who have experienced the death of a spouse or a life partner. The focus is on issues relevant to the grieving process.
Movie Night
An evening designed for those who are grieving and who are interested in experiencing grief reactions through the cinema. While movies are usually a vehicle offered as a way to escape from reality, movies can also be an important tool in helping us to process our grief.
Financial Speedbumps of Grief
The emotional impact of grief evokes a variety of reactions during the grief journey. Often the emotional waves of grief may often be interrupted by "speed bumps" of complicated and complex financial red tape. These legal issues have a priority of their own and the grieving person becomes diverted from doing the work of grief. A seminar open to individuals who have experienced the death of their spouse and for adult children dealing with the death of parents.
Children and Grief Seminar
A seminar designed to provide insight into the understanding of how grief affects children and teenagers. The workshop is for adults who have children who have experienced the death of a loved one or for any adult who may work with children who are experiencing grief issues.
Adult Orphan Support Group
An 8-week, closed-ended support group designed to discuss the emotional responses to the death of both parents and to process the information as it relates to the grieving process.
Mother’s Day/Father’s Day Remembrance Gathering
A Remembrance Gathering designed for adults as a time of reflection, a time of sharing, and a time of commemorating the lives of our deceased mothers and fathers (or mother and father figures). Let’s gather to pay honor to the memory of those who touched our lives in such profound ways.
Please plan to bring a picture with you of your mother/father or other remembrances to share with others at the gathering.
Young Widows/Widowers Group
The death of a young spouse/life partner brings with it its own unique dynamics and issues. How do you define yourself in a new role as a widow? How do you cope with being mother and father to the children still at home? How are you handling feelings of being cheated out of growing old together and the loss of dreams? Hospice of Frederick County is offering this eight-week, closed-ended support group specifically for young widows and widowers, ages 18-50 years.
Grief Education/Support Group
(1-3 months after the death)
A four-week, closed-ended support group that will focus on providing knowledge and insight into the grief journey, while allowing time to process the many difficult and unexpected emotions that you may be experiencing. The support group is offered to those who are recently bereaved. Each session will offer education about grief but also provide a time for you to be able to share your experiences with others.
Grief Work Support Group
An eight-week, closed-ended support group designed for adults who have experienced the death of a loved one, regardless of the relationship, cause of death or when the death occurred. Participants will be facilitated through self-reflection and discussion of the emotional and cognitive responses to their specific loss, and learn what to expect from the grieving process.
Grief Awareness Workshop
Do you understand the grief process? It is a psychological, social, and somatic reaction to the perception of loss. Do you understand the different grieving styles? Because grief can be so painful and overwhelming, it may frighten us, and many people worry if they are grieving in the “right” way and having “normal” feelings. Join us for a discussion about grief and the endless feelings that accompany it.
Coping With the Holidays Workshop
The holiday season can be difficult under the best of circumstances. Add to that the cloud of sadness when facing the holidays without a loved one for the first time. The holidays can provoke anxiety, bouts of depression and other emotional reactions. This workshop provides some practical ideas to help cope with the upcoming holidays and learn ways to commemorate the death of your loved one.
Annual Memorial Service
Each year, Hospice of Frederick County hosts a non-denominational Memorial Service for the families and friends of loved ones who have died. Hospice staff and volunteers join with the families and friends to celebrate the lives of these individuals.
Traumatic Grief Support Group
An eight-week group for those who have experienced the death of a loved one from a sudden death; homicide; suicide or accident. The grief that results from a traumatic death is particularly difficult to deal with. The group will offer education and insight into the characteristics of grief of people who have experienced a traumatic loss, but it will also provide a safe and comfortable environment in which to share your grief.
Book Club
A daytime book club held on the second Thursday of each month. Just as support groups, movies or music can promote the process of grief, so too can the non-fictional and fictional books that discuss grief and offer insight in how people cope in the face of the death of a loved one.
Family Caregiver Support Group
An open-ended group to assist you, the caregiver, to function more effectively while maintaining your own health and well being. This group will offer you a brief respite from your caregiver role. Come together with other caregivers and share your joys, frustrations and coping tools that help you through each day.