Mattoon, Illinois — In July of 2024, the Circle of Care organization received a state grant to fund a one year outreach project to help kids grieve the death of parents to overdoses.
The Circle of Care program will end in June, but the organization has created a sustainability hub to make sure all resources will still be available.
In the last 10 years more than 300,000 kids have lost their parents to drug overdoses including children right here in Illinois.
The program coordinator, Ambrosia Branson, said the Circle of Care organization wanted to make sure those kids have the proper resources to navigate life without the ones they love.
“Some kiddos, there’s that don’t talk, don’t trust, don’t feel,” Branson said. “So a lot of teachers and other people that they come into contact with may not realize what’s going on in that child’s life.”
The Circle of Care organization reported approximately 1,200 kids lost their parents to drug overdoses in 2022.
To help kids grieve, Branson said they’ve trained more than 400 people statewide to respond to kids in need.
“A lot of times these children in these communities, they may not be able to get the appropriate support or resources that they may need,” Branson said. “A lot of them are overlooked.”
To help grieving kids express their emotions, Circle of Care created and will soon distribute more than 14,000 comfort bags for children and teens.
The bags are equipped with toys and sensory tools for kids, while the teens receive journals and age appropriate items.
Circle of Care will also distribute these bags to trained agencies to keep in their care.
“We’re giving these to law enforcement agencies, youth serving organizations, faith based organizations, anyone that has any type of interaction with children,” Branson said.
Joan Stevens-Thome, with the Sangamon County Department of Public Health, said children dealing with their parents’ substance abuse, can cause them to take on more responsibilities.
“Many times we do find that young children are sometimes the parents to their parents,” Stevens-Thome said. “They are often seeking out options to help their parents survive.”
Along with the comfort bags, the Circle of Care organization has also compiled a statewide directory of grief resources to help families and kids in need. that directory will remain active on the Illinois Family Resource Center’s website.
Stevens-Thome wanted to make it clear there’s no age limit to carry NARCAN, medication that could help save someone who is experiencing an overdose.
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