Bring Free Grief Support to L.A. Schools

Support for foster and systems-impacted youth

County of Los Angeles (select only if your project has a countywide benefit)

Expand existing project, program, or initiative (expanding and continuing ongoing, successful work)

A 2025 report on child bereavement says 1 in 13 children in California will experience a parent or sibling’s death by age 18. After such a loss, a child's life turns upside down and in such isolating times, unsupported grief can intensify into further physical, emotional, and social risks. Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute reports that bereavement is a top predictor of poor school outcomes. For today’s students, emotional wellness is necessary to succeed but without adequate grief support, children have reduced capacity to learn, achieve, and prepare for life's next steps. On average, 83% of our support groups meet at high-poverty schools and 80% of students are considered at-risk and underserved in mental and emotional support resources. Expanding our School Program is vital to meet this community need -- ensuring that systems-impacted children and teens who are grieving have support to thrive in their classrooms and beyond.

OUR HOUSE’s school-based grief support program is a free, 10-week program where we meet students who are grieving at their schools, eliminating cost and transportation barriers that traditionally bar certain L.A. students and families from otherwise accessing grief support services. Each group of 8-10 students meets for one class period over 10 consecutive weeks. Groups are led by one clinically supervised OUR HOUSE volunteer who has completed an extensive background check and training, plus a co-leader from school support personnel. All groups follow a research-based curriculum to achieve high impact results. Through this direct service provision, grieving students can experience the OUR HOUSE healing model and receive peer support in their own community, forming supportive relationships and reducing isolation through the commonality of their grief. Schools highlight improvements to academic performances; parents report that the children are happier and better behaved at home. In the most recent year, we served 495 students across 46 school-based groups, the majority of which are considered at-risk and under resourced, based on LAUSD and L.A. County socio-economic data. Our services are especially needed at more schools like these to ensure that children who are grieving have access to the necessary support systems in order to find a path to healing and growth.

This generous grant of $75,000 will provide free grief support services to approximately 15 new schools and 150 new students across L.A. County. By continuing the program’s growth and development, we can ensure a better L.A. of tomorrow, where grieving students from high-poverty and high-need communities have the resources to cope with their grief, diverting the next generation of Angelenos from a harmful path of prolonged, unresolved grief and instead, towards a path of healing and forward progress.
Volunteerism is another key facet of OUR HOUSE’s positive impact in Los Angeles. OUR HOUSE school programs are, in large part, volunteer-driven. These resilient volunteers, often having personal connections to grief themselves, choose to help young students find their own path to hope after the death of someone close. The further expansion of our school programs offers an opportunity to deepen these powerful bounds of human empathy and connection in L.A.