Here with Support ~ helping you cope with life’s challenges
Wilson Support Center ~ Community Grief Support
Our mission is to provide bereavement support and education that is sensitive, compassionate and responsive to the needs of our clients, and offer information and resources to anyone experiencing loss, grief and death. All services are provided by trained individuals or counselors. Our network of facilitators also includes licensed healthcare professionals and peer volunteers.
Since we recognize that everyone copes with transitions in different ways, we provide the following options for support:
Support groups
Educational presentations
Referrals for individual counseling
Grief Counseling & Support Groups
Are you grieving the death of someone you cherished? Overwhelmed by everything? Dreading the future? Our Wilson Support Groups will walk the grief journey with you. Whatever your loss, please know that you are not alone! Programs below are led by certified mental health counselors.
After a Parent Dies
How do you go forward after you lose a parent — your foundation is gone? You may find yourself focusing so much on your remaining parent, that you do not validate our own grief. If you are experiencing the loss of your second parent, you may be faced the challenges of decision making and finalizing. You may experience difficulty with siblings or other family members’ during the finalization process. If you lived with you parent, you may feel lonely without them in your home. Your routines and holidays will be noticeably different. Overall, you may find yourself feeling scattered, vulnerable and lost in a society that often does not understand your challenges or pain.
“After A Parent Dies” is a support group that is tailored for adults who have lost a parent within the last 3 years.
8-week Session: Monday Evenings, 4/3/17-5/22/17 Time: 6:00 – 7:30 p.m. Location: Wilson Support Center, 150 Bennett Road, Cheektowaga, NY 14227 Fee: $80 Registration and payment are required before April 3rd.
Community Bereavement Group
Support for anyone who has experienced the death of a loved one. Fee: FREE!
Evening Groups: 1st and 3rd Wednesday of the month, 6 – 8 p.m. 2nd Thursday of the month, 6 – 7:30 p.m. Daytime Group: 4th Tuesday of the month, 11:30 a.m. – 1 p.m.
Camp Blue Skies
Campers will engage in therapeutic arts activities to support expression, identification of supports and coping mechanisms, as well as opportunities for interpersonal connections, meaning-making and legacy. Feelings and responses related to grief and strategies to assist with the lifelong impact of grief will be explored within a shared experience.
Camp Blue Skies welcomes children and teens, ages 7 through 17 in Western New York, who have experienced the death of a loved one, at least three months prior to the beginning of camp.
Highlights of the weekend include: team-building and adventure activities, art and music experiences, bonfires, and much more. Campers will leave with new supports, treasured resources, and most importantly, cherished memories of friendship and tribute to their loved one. Click here for registration and other forms.
Fee: $50 When: August 25 - 27, 2017 Where: Cradle Beach Camp 8038 Old Lake Shore Road, Angola, NY 14006
Storm Clouds and Rainbows
Support group for children and teens ages 7–17 and their caregivers to help them cope with the death of a loved one. This 10-week support group offers children and teens the opportunity to connect with their respective peer groups in a safe and supportive environment as they learn how to identify their emotions, communicate with key supports, cope with loss, and memorialize loved ones.
Parents/caregivers connect separately to focus on the developmental needs of their children and to work through their own grief process within a supportive group dynamic. Click on the image at the top of the right column for more information.
Next session: Fall 2017 Thursdays, 6 – 7:30 p.m. Fee: $60.
Suicide Bereavement Group
Support for adults who have experienced the death of a loved one from suicide. 2nd Tuesday of each month. 6:30 - 8:30 p.m. Fee: FREE!
Widows and Widowers
Group support for those who have experienced the death of a spouse or significant other. 8 Week Sessions: Monday Evenings or Thursday Mornings. Click the "View Monthly Calendar" link at top of page for session dates. Fee: $80.
Peer-led Support Groups
For more information, please contact the people listed below each group. Unless otherwise specified, sessions are FREE and held at the Mary & Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. Support Center.
Adult Sibling Support Group
Shauna Nealon 716-984-5867
Bereaved Parents of the USA
Contact Tony & Bernie Misita 716-675-3844
Cancer Survivor Group
First and third Wesnesday of each month 6 - 7:30 p.m. Support for men and women who have been diagnosed with any type of cancer.
The FRAT (Fathers Rallying Against Tragedy)
Contact Joe at 716-213-3277 or jdjquin5@verizon.net
Footprints on the Heart
The Footprints on the Heart program is held at M. Steven Piver M.D. Center for Women’s Health & Wellness and helps families cope with the loss of a baby caused by miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy, stillbirth and newborn death. Click here for more information: http://www.chsbuffalo.org/Services/OBGYN/Obstetrics/PregnancyLoss
Healing Touch
Healing Touch is an energy therapy in which practitioners consciously use their hands in a heart-centered and intentional way to support and facilitate physical, emotional, mental and spiritual health. Healing Touch is a biofield (magnetic field around the body) therapy that is an energy-based approach to health and healing. Healing Touch uses the gift of touch to influence the human energy system, specifically the energy field that surrounds the body, and the energy centers that control the flow from the energy field to the physical body. It is a safe and non-invasive therapy that complements traditional, standard care.
These non-invasive techniques employ the hands to clear, energize, and balance the human and environmental energy fields, thus affecting physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health. It is based on a heart-centered, caring relationship in which the practitioner and client come together energetically to facilitate the client's health and healing.
The goal of Healing Touch is to restore balance and harmonies in the energy system, placing the client in a position to self-heal.
Healing Touch is available for patients, survivors, and their caregivers. A certified Healing Touch volunteer uses a compassionate, heart-centered approach and gently works on, or slightly above, the recipient’s body to restore balance on a physical, emotional, mental and spiritual level. Several benefits have been reported including decreased anxiety, pain, and depression, and increased relaxation and a sense of well-being.
Healing Touch takes takes place twice per month. Please call 716-836-6460 to register for one of three 30-minute sessions below. (We request that you check in 15 minutes before your scheduled time.)
The Wilson Support Center (formerly known as Life Transitions Center since 1977) is an affiliate of The Center for Hospice & Palliative Care, a non-profit organization.
”The care provided to my father was helpful in easing my father’s transition from this world, and proved a true blessing in easing my mother’s burdens during that time.”
716-836-6460
GriefSupport@palliativecare.org
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