Following the passing of their daughter, Katy, in 2011 from a rare form of pediatric liver cancer called hepatoblastoma, Brigid Collins and Jim Stewart started Katy’s Courage. In addition to funding local school scholarships and raising money for pediatric cancer research, the non-profit organization runs a children’s bereavement program called Katy’s Kids at the Children’s Museum on the 1st and 3rd Wednesday every month. We recently spoke with Brigid about the program’s beginnings, the importance of helping children cope with grief, and their future plans.
How did the idea for Katy’s Kids come about?
After Kate passed away, a friend of ours recommended the Children’s Bereavement Center in Texas. What we really liked about it is that they utilized play to help children overcome their grief. It worked so well with our son, we thought it would work well on the East End and children shouldn’t have to travel so far for this support. We made it a goal to create something similar out here and put it out there into the community that we were hoping to do this. We were contacted by a Nancy Wendell, director of the Sabin Family Foundation—she had heard from friends about a center and reached out. She spoke to Steve Long about a collaboration and he thought it was a great idea. Jim and I had training at the Dougy Center to learn more about creating something like this and launched last July. We’ve been meeting on the 1st and 3rd Wednesday of ever month at 5:45pm ever since.
What are the meetings like?
We give families the chance to meet and talk and give children play time. Then we have a casual, informal meal. Afterwards the adults have a chance to talk and the kids have a chance to do some type of creative expression. We give them a chance to listen, to share. Lots of times, what we’ve seen is that children just really open up because they have peers that they grow to trust. The power of it is is that if you’re a young child, you don’t have know many people with the same experience. Having that shared experience of losing something close to them is pretty powerful. There’s been so many moments that show that this is helping. There’s a little boy—his mom read about us in the newspaper—and he his and his sister now attend. When it was his dad’s birthday, he brought brownies. We celebrated together and we talked about his dad and what his dad liked to do.
What do you envision for the future of the program?
We hope to grow and expand the program, especially as we move forward. We’ve been working on developing a program for teens in the coming year. It’s good to grow slowly, to get an idea of how your program is unique to your community and how to develop something that works well for the people you serve. We really value being able to participate with the Museum. It’s a great resource for families who have used it so far and we hope it continues to grow.