Death

How long does it take to “get over” grief? Everyone who has gone through a loss knows that is an impossible question to answer. You might feel most of your grief before an ill grandparent dies, or the grief of being estranged from a parent might not hit you until years after the loss. There…

Kids today are in a mental health crisis. Over 40% of high school students experience signs of depression, and a third of adolescents struggle with anxiety. Many factors in a changing world are impacting young people’s mental health, but we often overlook how significantly kids are impacted by their parents and adult caregivers. The kids…

Life today is overwhelming, complicated, and changing too quickly to keep up with. The future of work is changing as questions about remote jobs, labor movements, and the use of advanced AI create a new economic landscape. Our planet is getting hotter, and natural disasters are more frequent. We don’t have enough housing. It’s hard…

Earlier this year, United States Surgeon General Vivek Murthy advised that loneliness is a public health epidemic that causes lasting harm to physical and mental health. We are missing out on important social connections, and so are our kids.  “1 in 2 adults report measurable levels of loneliness, and the group that’s actually most lonely…

Last week, Hearts of Hope celebrated the end of summer and the 10th Anniversary of our Newtown Chapter with the fourth and final event in our Senior Paw Project Summer series. We teamed up with the Catherine Violet Hubbard Animal Sanctuary to host a series of Paint with a Purpose events throughout the summer, where…

by Judith A. Pedersen, Thanatologist, MSW, FT, Hearts of Hope Foundation Founder, Board President, and Executive Director Grief is a BIG Deal. I’m often asked, “What is grief?” When I hear this, my mind often thinks of questions like, “How big is the ocean?” or “How vast is the sky?” That’s because grief truly is…

Our children and students are in a mental health crisis. The isolation, stress, and loss of the COVID-19 pandemic compounded already rising rates of mental health challenges. In the last decade, feelings of persistent sadness and hopelessness—as well as suicidal thoughts—increased by 40% in young people. Hearts of Hope created a program called GRIT to…

Mary Kaminsky was a hospice worker in the early days of the AIDS epidemic and remembers the first patients coming into the facility where she worked. “They didn’t have visitors a,nd their food was brought up on cardboard trays, then thrown into a biohazard bag,” she said on the latest episode of The Grief to…

When Lisa Boehm’s vibrant, hard-working daughter Katie died in a car accident at 17-years-old, Lisa knew right away that she didn’t want Katie’s life to be in vain. “From the very first moment that we lost her, I always wondered, what is (Katie) thinking when she watches me?” Lisa said on our newest episode of…

Finding hope while suffering might sound at first like the platitudes we get tired of hearing. “Look on the bright side!” or “At least you still have your health!” are not the silver linings well-intentioned people think they are—not when struggles like loss, depression, and anxiety have such a life-altering impact. But hope doesn’t mean…