Credit: The Austin Center for Grief & Loss
The Austin Center for Grief & Loss was created in 2007 by founder Khris Ford. Ford’s mission was, and still is, to help Austinites navigate the overwhelming experience of grief. After the death of her own son, she was called to help others experience the transformative power of grief.
Since its founding, The Austin Center for Grief & Loss has provided counseling services and support to thousands of our community members. Unresolved grief can be a lonely, isolating experience. The world goes, goes, goes, and you’re stuck in neutral, trying to figure out how to cope. It feels like there isn’t time to breathe. The wonderful team of compassionate professionals at The Austin Center for Grief & Loss provides that needed space to breathe.
Kris Ford’s mission is very close to me, and I think it’s something every Austinite should be proud to support. I volunteer with the team, and have seen firsthand the type of growth this community is capable of providing. Even more than growth, the organization helps individuals reach new levels of meaning and love in their lives. Very few programs in Austin can make that claim.
Services at The Austin Center for Grief & Loss
Counseling
The team provides counseling services for adults and children who are experiencing grief. The Austin Center for Grief & Loss matches clients with clinically-licensed counselors trained in the grief process.
Support Groups
Grief counseling is the first type of counseling that may come to mind with a place like this. But you can find other types of loss-based counseling. If you’re looking for divorce support groups, or groups for those dealing with debilitating sicknesses, then The Austin Center for Grief & Loss can probably help.
Here is a short list of support groups they facilitate:
- Bereaved parents
- Bereaved partners and spouses
- Pregnancy loss
- Bereaved children
- Beyond suicide
- Adult divorce support
- Children divorce support
- Empty nester support
- Natural disaster grief support
— ACGL (@GriefLossATX) July 5, 2017
Grief Support Workshops
The Austin Center for Grief & Loss also provides the community with a series of workshops. These programs collaboratively help clients explore themselves and their relationships with grief.
The workshops can be creative and some can be fun. Each one is a small step on the long road to transforming pain into meaning. The workshops may be geared for adults or children, and can range from music therapy, to yoga, to collaborative art making.
Community Activism
In addition to helping clients manage their grief journeys, The Austin Center for Grief & Loss assists the community at large with understanding grief. The center routinely holds community discussions on topics like the role of social media in the grief process and tricky subjects like financial planning.
In a world that has a hard time understanding grief and its impact on communities, I am proud to be involved with The Austin Center for Grief & Loss. Grief work can be depressing and dark, but most of the time it is inspiring and transformative.
Please check out this organization if you’re struggling with loss in your life or looking for a meaningful place to volunteer.
Dolores Abernathy: Everyone I cared about is gone and it hurts so badly.
Bernard Lowe: I can make that feeling go away if you’d like.
Dolores Abernathy: Why would I want that? The pain, their loss, it’s all I have left of them. You think the grief will make you smaller inside, like your heart will collapse in on itself, but it doesn’t. I feel spaces opening up inside of me like a building with rooms I’ve never explored.
-“Westworld” (HBO)
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Which Austin nonprofit is close to your heart?
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