Funded Projects

Black Grief Task Force Community Collaboration

Project Year

2025

City & State

Aurora, Colorado

Program Name

CATCH Planning

Topic

Culturally Effective Care

Program Description

Problem: Black Americans experience higher rates of infant, child, and maternal mortality, yet are largely underrepresented in research and support efforts related to grief and loss (1-4). Grief for Black Americans is laden with the stress of racism, structural inequities, and ongoing racial trauma. Therefore, Black bereavement support must recognize the unique historical, political, psychological, economic, and cultural factors that influence grief and healing. More work is needed to better characterize grief experiences among Black caregivers (usually parents) whose child has died and surviving siblings to inform future efforts to support families after such losses. Understanding what resources are available, effective, and valued, as well as gaps in care, is essential for developing and implementing community-valued, culturally-responsive grief support. Community-based participatory research is well-suited to studying experiences of these families and has been a successful model for reducing health disparities (5). For instance, collaboration between community members, health professionals, and legislators, led to Colorado Medicaid covering doula services, as culturally-congruent doula services have decreased racial disparities in birth outcomes (6-8).   Primary Setting: Our efforts focus on understanding the experiences of and co-creating bereavement support for Black caregivers and surviving siblings in Denver and Aurora, Colorado.    Number of children affected: Denver and Aurora are home to more than 630,000 children, more than 10% who are Black/African American (9). According to the Childhood Bereavement Estimation Model, using Center for Disease Control and Prevention and census data for Denver, Arapahoe, Adams, Jefferson, and Broomfield counties, 3% of Non-Hispanic Black youth will experience the death of a sibling before age 18. This is more than three times their Non-Hispanic White and multiracial peers.  Project goal: The goal of this project is to cultivate a coalition of bereaved Black parents, community organizations, and healthcare providers 1. to better understand experiences of Black children and caregivers who have experienced the death of a child and 2. to develop culturally-responsive bereavement support. We aim to define individual, organizational, and societal changes that can be made to support culturally-responsive bereavement support and outline a plan for initial interventions.  Proposed intervention: As a Planning Project, the main intervention proposed includes developing our Black Grief Task Force. This includes recruiting, organizing (defining mission, role clarity, strategies, and means of evaluation), and capacity building for the Task Force team members, asset-mapping to understand current resources for bereaved families in our community, and conducting and analyzing focus groups. After the completion of this needs assessment, we will develop priorities for our interventions (potentially education for providers, advocacy efforts, or development of support programming), create an implementation/evaluation plan, and apply for grant funding to support these next phases.  Anticipated Outcomes: We anticipate developing a strong, sustainable, and collaborative Black Grief Task Force with 6-10 active core members and 10-15 supporting organizations, consistent monthly meetings, and measures to assess our progress including meeting attendance, focus group data collection, and an asset map of current resources. We will also highlight current areas of strength within the Black community and identify a list of opportunities for novel support and advocacy. Not only will this add to our society’s current understanding of Black grief, but it will also inform community-valued, sustainable bereavement support. We foresee the need to train providers, educators, and community leaders who work with children on culturally-responsive bereavement support. It is possible that there will be a need for specific programming to support siblings or advocacy efforts to reform policies around bereavement leave for caregivers. The results of the focus groups will help drive the initial priorities for the Black Grief Task Force in Denver and Aurora, which could inform other communities moving forward. 

Project Goal

To collaborate with community members, local organizations, and healthcare providers dedicated to understanding, developing, and implementing culturally-responsive bereavement support for Black families in the greater Denver and Aurora areas who have experienced the loss of a child, ultimately creating programming, access to resources, and structural policy change to cultivate support after pediatric deaths.

Project Objective 1

By July 1, 2025, establish the Black Grief Task Force, composed of a core group of 6-10 partners (community members, community organizations, and healthcare providers). This will include developing a Memorandum of Understanding with a mission, goals, roles, and means of evaluation for our collaboration together.

Project Objective 2

By December 31, 2025, conduct and analyze three focus groups, each with 10 participants (Black parents/caregivers who have experienced the loss of a child) and have a written summary of 3-6 key themes. 

Project Objective 3

By March 30, 2026, develop an initial pilot project, guided by the needs assessment and focus group data, with written goals, an implementation plan/timeline, means of evaluation, and be sent to 10-15 community members (who self-select during focus groups and agree to be contacted in the future) via email for feedback.

AAP District

District VIII

Institutional Name

University of Colorado

Contact 1

Kathryn Kalata, MD