Supporting Youth Grieving Substance-Related Loss
A Practitioner Workbook
By Stephanie McCune
The enduring toxic drug crisis has reshaped how youth experience grief. Losses are often sudden, stigmatized, and layered with silence, trauma, and systemic inequities. Practitioners are frequently trained in grief. They are trained in substance use. But few have been trained in how to hold both — concurrently, compassionately, and without increasing harm.
Supporting Youth Grieving Substance-Related Loss is a trauma-informed, strength-based practitioner workbook designed to bridge that gap.
This comprehensive, evidence-informed resource supports counsellors, youth workers, hospice staff, educators, community practitioners, and system leaders working with youth and families impacted by drug toxicity deaths and living loss.
What This Workbook Offers
Grounded in contemporary grief theory, trauma-informed care, harm reduction, and resilience research, this workbook integrates:
The Dual Process Model, Continuing Bonds, and Meaning Reconstruction
Trauma- and violence-informed practice
Equity-informed and anti-stigma approaches
Motivational interviewing micro-skills
Somatic and co-regulation strategies
Family systems and peer grief interventions
Justice-doing and practitioner sustainability practices
It includes:
Realistic BC-based case vignettes
Structured reflection and supervision prompts
Story mapping and narrative exercises
Peer grief circle planning tools
Ritual and memory-making templates
Safety and connection planning frameworks
Low-impact debriefing protocols for teams
Practical worksheets ready for immediate use
This is not a stage-based grief manual.
It does not position substance use as pathology to “fix” before grief can be addressed.
Instead, it offers a concurrent, relational, and dignity-centered approach to supporting youth navigating substance-related loss within an ongoing public health crisis.
Who This Workbook Is For
Counsellors and therapists
Youth workers and outreach staff
Hospice and palliative care teams
School-based mental health professionals
Community health practitioners
Supervisors and system leaders
It is appropriate for both individual practice and team development, and may be used:
During or after training
In supervision
For self-directed professional development
To build community-based grief response plans
Why This Work Matters
Behind every statistic is a young person trying to make sense of a changed world.
Grief after substance-related loss is often cumulative, complicated by stigma, and embedded within peer networks. Youth may oscillate between numbness and intensity, connection and avoidance, hope and despair. Practitioners need frameworks that are nuanced, flexible, and grounded in care.
This workbook was created to meet that need.
Format
Professionally designed, full-color PDF
Printable worksheets and tools
Adaptable for community-specific contexts
Scalable for national training implementation
This workbook accompanies the two-day in-person training:
Supporting Youth Grieving Substance-Related Loss: A Trauma-Informed Practitioner Workshop
For bulk orders or workshop bookings, please contact directly.