About Us
The Center for Loss and Bereavement, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, offers a place of comfort and professional support services for people experiencing profound loss and grief. Located in Skippack, PA, the Center has been a leading provider for over 20 years of professional grief counseling, support groups, and resources to individuals and families, helping them find strength, connection, and solace through the tragic circumstances of loss and death.
The Center provides a supportive space to express and process feelings, offering coping strategies to navigate the grieving process in a healthy and adaptive way. Our knowledgeable staff serve as companions on the grief journey helping clients find a sense of hope and healing in the future.
In addition, the Center works directly with local organizations and businesses by offering preventative education to help reduce the stigma around grief and create a more supportive, understanding, and grief informed community.
As a non-profit organization, we are committed to making professional grief support available at low-cost or no cost to the clients we serve. We do not receive funding through the government and are able to offer our services through the generosity of our individual and corporate donors and foundational grants.
Our Founders
Founded by Christine Smith and Shirley Elrod, the Center began operations in September 1999 and was created to fill a need of professional bereavement support and education services in the community.
Our Mission
The Center for Loss and Bereavement is a non-profit resource of specialized knowledge and professional support that provides meaningful connection and restorative guidance for those impacted by grief.
Our Vision is for all facing loss to find solace and renewed strength while investing in life.
Guiding Principles
Grief is a natural, whole mind and body response to a loss.
- Grief is a long-term process that influences emotional, mental, physical, and behavioral health, as well as fundamental systems of belief.
- Grief’s process is not linear, nor is it something that ends with closure. It involves an on-going balance between processing the impacts of loss and cultivating restorative investments in life.
Regardless of age, ability, or circumstance in life, people are universally confronted with matters of death and dying.
- Loss touches and affects us all, yet one’s experience and reactions within grief’s process are intricate, continually evolving, and truly unique.
- While grief reactions vary greatly between individuals and across family, cultural, or structural systems, all people search for connection, comfort, and meaning in suffering.
Grief can be isolating and challenging to endure even under the best of conditions.
- An individual’s ability to cope with grief is influenced by many factors, including the circumstances of loss and the quality of available support within oneself and one’s network.
- Some individuals face added struggles in life or traumatic features of loss that have the potential to complicate and prolong their finding tools of strength.
Distressing aspects of grief can be countered by gains in insight and knowledge, in addition to connection through peer support.
- In any circumstance, fostering qualities of resilience can significantly help restore stability, balance, and a sense of confidence in one’s capacity to cope.
- Under the care and guidance of specialized professionals, individuals and systems are better able to reinforce the practice of therapeutic efforts towards holistic wellness.
Availability of quality, supportive resources provide hope and potential for all to heal through meaningful growth.
- Increasing resilience in individuals, families, and organizations impacted by grief has a systemic impact on a community’s ability to withstand crisis.
- Bridging support for people of all ages, beliefs, and diverse experiences brings a stronger sense of unity and purpose in life to us all.
Our Professional Affiliations & Memberships
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• NACG
• CBEM Changemaker
• ADEC
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Contact
Ph: 610-222-4110
Fax: 610-222-4116
3847 Skippack Pike
P.O. Box 1299
Skippack, PA 19474