Grief Strategies: Supporting Individuals with Developmental Disabilities Who Are Grieving a Death

Why this project?

For those of us who have worked in the field of developmental disability for some years, we have watched the changes in the lives of individuals with developmental disabilities as they became participants in their communities.

We have been there as their lives have been extended to more closely reflect that of the normal population. We have lived with them. We have supported them through their employment and volunteer roles.

We have gotten to know them intimately as they navigated these roles along with their personal relationships with friends, family and community members. Now we are with them as they experience the deaths of those they love and care about.

In the early years, the wisdom of the field said people with developmental disabilities did not feel the pain of death, just as we thought they didn’t have the capacity to feel other types of pain.

We have now learned differently. We know that the people we support feel much like we do. Even people with little capacity to understand the concept of death and its finality know there is a hole in their lives when a person disappears, and they mourn that loss.

Greif Strategies Manual

This manual has been developed as the first phase of a project to increase the ability of those in the field of developmental disabilities to learn and grow ever more proficient at supporting individuals with developmental disabilities who are grieving a death, and those who support them.