Interview And Tour Of The Grand Rapids Eles Place Branch

The Interview Taylor Drayton and I interviewed Kelly Ahti on February 29th, 2016 at 10:00am. Kelly is the program director of the Grand Rapids Ele’s Place branch. The Interview and tour took place at their rented office space next to the Third Reformed Church on Michigan Street. Ele’s Place holds their groups two nights a week in the church building, and the office space was previously the church Parish, until it was renovated by the Ele’s Place team. The Population Served The main population which is served at Ele’s Place is children, ages 3-18, who have experienced a death. However, they also offer groups for the parents and caretakers of the children receiving services. Ele’s Place serves the people of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Flint,†¦show more content†¦They do this through workshops and training sessions for teachers, school administrators, medical professionals, funeral home staff, hospice staff, and more. Challenges/Barriers One thing that kept coming up in our conversation with Kelly was their need for more funding. They survive completely on donations and receive no state funding. Therefore, Ele’s Place as Kelly put it, â€Å"runs pretty thin.† She said they always need more money for advertising and more staff so that they can reach more children. Across all four branches of Ele’s Place, there are only 51 staff employees. Because of this, they heavily rely on volunteers, which can be a tricky business. We talked about how it’s sometimes hard to keep volunteers accountable and when it takes on average 25 volunteers to run just one night of programs, it can be very difficult when volunteers don’t show up. She also mentioned that because there are so few employees, they all have to wear many hats to keep the programs running. Another challenge that Kelly mentioned was society’s ideas about children and grief. She told us that the Ele’s Place staff is ofte n confronted with this idea that children don’t really grieve, and if they do, it’s only in brief moments and doesn’t require any counseling or services to aid in their recovery. She also noted that there is a stigma around talking about death in our society. Kelly mentioned a local