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Coping with Change, Endings, Grief and Loss For High School Students

(Earning one credit towards high school diploma)

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​​​​​​​​​When         Hits the Fan: Coping with Change, Endings, Grief and Loss is a 12-week custom program designed to help teens in grades 10-12 build life skills for managing grief. This program will provide wellness strategies for processing the often complex and intense emotions that teens can experience. 

 

Let’s face it, we are all living with more pressure and grief than ever before. Teens experience change, endings, grief and loss in life, just as adults do. Here are some examples of "How        Hits The Fan” in kids’ lives:

 

Change + Endings

The ever-evolving impact of the pandemic on their daily life, divorce in their family, moving communities, growing up, changing schools, transitioning from high school to post secondary, coming out, gender transition, and more

 

Grief + Loss

 

Death of a peer / friend / family member / public personality / pet, break ups, friendships ending, bullying, failures, let downs in life, difficult relationship with their parents, loss of innocence, and more

 

Our grief-phobic culture can leave teens lacking in the tools for managing these big emotions. In addition to turning to parents for support, teens lean heavily on their friends when they are going through a hard time. This program will also give teens the tools they need to effectively support each other. 

 

Guided by Ley-Anne Mountain, the kids will do a deep dive into an exploration of change and grief using animal-assisted activities. Our Animal team members have also experienced their own loss.  Their stories are the threads woven into our hearts and program.  Our animals are the support.  Unconditional, quiet listeners that hold and create space for the kids in the experience within the present moment. Animals teach us self-awareness and mindfulness. There is a quiet, unspoken exchange of compassion and support.  This program will be delivered weekly, for 12 weeks, for one hour during the afternoon option block. 

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Ley-Anne Mountain is a wellness professional and grief educator. For over a decade, she has worked with elementary-aged students at many elementary schools within Chinook's Edge School Division, and many students at Innisfail High School will remember interacting with Ley-Anne’s bunnies and her pet therapy dog, Amigo, in their grade four classrooms and middle school.  

 

Animal-assisted activities are at the heart of Ley-Anne’s work. She has developed animal-assisted grief support programs for families, which are hosted at her farm in Innisfail.  She has taken extensive training in animal health technology and animal-assisted therapy. 

 

Ley-Anne is a registered natural health care practitioner and is well-versed in a variety of self care techniques. She is well-versed in grief support skills as a certified Bereavement Support Group Facilitator and through her Douglas College End of Life Doula program training.  Ley-Anne is a Victim Services Advocate and a volunteer with the Olds & District Hospice Society.