Full Circle Grief Center was established in 2008 by Allyson England Drake, M.Ed., CT, FT, as a comprehensive grief resource center for children, adults, and families. Full Circle Grief Center provides comprehensive, professional bereavement support in Central Virginia. We are unique in our bereavement approach and everyone who needs support after loss is welcome at Full Circle.
Our Vision
We empower our local community to grieve in a healthy way.
Our Mission
To provide comprehensive, professional bereavement support to children, adults, families, and communities in Central Virginia.
Our principles
We can help others normalize their grief experience, learn healthy coping strategies, develop peer support, decrease isolation, identify at risk or suicidal behavior, increase communication between family members and friends, prepare for future losses, and find ways to remember loved ones.
What we offer
Here you will find clinically trained grief counselors, supportive peer groups, creative outlets, acceptance of experiences and feelings, an opportunity to play, a chance to remember and honor your loved one.
We believe in the power of the group process, benefits of creative expression, the importance of groups being facilitated by experienced professionals, the need to assist the entire family, not just the child, the importance of providing grief support to all individuals, regardless of ability to pay.
Our goals are to help grieving individuals:
- Strengthen their family through grief: Increasing communication between family members to strengthen family ties so they can better support each other during grieving
- Learn coping skills: Identifying healthy ways to work with traumatic events and their long grief journey
- Reduce isolation: Building support networks within and outside of the family
- Heal through creative expression: Using creative expression to strengthen communication and process feelings
the full circle approach
Full Circle is unique in its approach to bereavement care. We are the only organization in Central Virginia that offers bereavement groups for extended families and concurrent peer groups, professionally led suicide loss groups and perinatal loss groups, bereavement support to grieving students at their school or community organization, professionally designed grief support programs combined with creative expression.
We believe that a circle represents many aspects of our mission at Full Circle. We have worked to create a circle of support where children and families experiencing loss can find hope and start the healing process in a safe, trusting environment.
With a curriculum designed by our Executive Director, Allyson England Drake, M.Ed., CT, FT, using a model from the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, Full Circle incorporates best practices for helping families grieve. All groups emphasize the importance of teaching coping skills and feelings identification as well as how to effectively support others while healing themselves.
Full Circle Grief Center 