Deep dive workshops

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Deep Dive Workshops are 4-week programs featuring in-depth interactive exploration, guided conversation, and reflection on important topics in suicide loss. Taught by members of Coping After Suicide's national facilitator corps, these interactive educational workshops will be offered by Zoom and won't be recorded. Fall of 2026 we are offering the following four workshops:

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CONTINUING BONDS (Doreen Marshall, PhD)

Thursdays 7:00 - 8:30 pm Eastern

• October 1, 15, 29 & November 12

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For those suicide loss survivors who are at least two years from their loss and would like a deeper exploration of how grief has impacted their outlook, their belief system and future goals.  Each session will include a topic-based activity and discussion, as well as steps to work on between sessions.

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• Week 1:  Our Losses and Survival- Discussion of suicide losses, survivor identity, common grief experiences over time and our survival to date.

• Week 2: Our Current Challenges with Suicide Grief--what helps healing and what is harder to move through. Grief remnants, difficult emotions, changing relationships and emerging.

• Week 3: Holding Multiple Truths--an exploration of who we lost, their impact on who we are and what they mean to us today.

• Week 4:  Incorporating Our Losses and Meaning-Making--having goals and dreams for the future and moving through loss towards meaning. 

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HOPE, CAPACITY, AND HOLDING TWO TRUTHS AT ONCE: LIVING WITH LOSS TO SUICIDE (Steven Karaiskos, PhD)

Wednesdays 6:30 - 8:00 pm Eastern

• October 28 & November 4, 11, 18

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Drawing on the psychological research of dual process coping, this series offers a practical, compassionate framework for holding both grief and hope, loss and continuity, after a loss to suicide. Rather than asking participants to move past their grief, this space makes room for grief and growth to exist side by side, session after session.

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● Week 1: Two Truths: An Introduction
● Week 2: Naming the Loss
● Week 3: Holding Two Truths
● Week 4: Building Capacity: Hope as a Practice

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PARENTING GRIEVING CHILDREN, ADOLESCENTS, AND TEENS (Joan Hoff)​

Mondays 7:00 - 8:30 Eastern

• October 26 & November 2, 9, 19

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An exploration of how children, adolescents, and teens grieve a suicide death, how it looks different from yours, what they need, and how to support them on their journey while you too are grieving.  Because everyone grieves differently, this workshop provides ways for the family to support each other while allowing each person’s unique grief.

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• Week 1: How children, adolescents, and teens grieve and how it looks different from adults’ grief. Ways to support each persons grief while working together as a family. 

• Week 2: Developmental issues and common behaviors you might see at different ages. How to support healthy grief and ways to deal with the unhealthy ones.

• Week 3:  What grieving kids need: how to best support their grief, and the importance of play and storytelling.

• Week 4: Remembering, rituals, and special days.

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WHO AM I NOW? IDENTITY, GRIEF, AND TRANSFORMATION IN THE AFTERMATH OF LOSS (Steven Karaiskos, PhD)

Tuesdays 6:30 - 8:00 pm Eastern 

• October 20, 27 & November 3, 10

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Rooted in community, story, and self-discovery, participants will explore how loss reshapes who we are and what it means to carry both sorrow and growth. Rather than rushing toward resolution, this series offers space to pause and reflect on how we continue becoming in the aftermath of loss.

Note: If you've joined Steven before for this workshop, this is a good one to repeat; our identity exploration after a suicide loss never ends.

● Week 1: Standing in the aftermath of loss
● Week 2: The stories loss leaves us with
● Week 3: Becoming, not replacing, after loss
● Week 4: Living forward with loss integrated

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The registration fee for each 4-week workshop is $175.

 

 

 

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Other Deep Dives offered in the past, include:

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AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO FEELS THIS WAY? NAVIGATING COMPLICATED & AMBIVALENT GRIEF (Jaletta Albright Desmond)
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Explore the unique challenges of grief that is complicated by virtue of life circumstances, the relationship you had with the person, and/or conflicting emotions. 

• Week 1: Why does my grief feel different (even in support groups)? 

• Week 2: What do I want to say about my grief and what does it mean? 

• Week 3: How do I learn to live with this loss? 

• Week 4: How do I learn to connect differently with the person I lost — and with myself? 

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EXPLORING YOUR GRIEF JOURNEY (Joan Hoff)

Explore how far you’ve come, where you are now, and where you want to be. Each session will include a topic-based activity and discussion, as well as next steps to work on between sessions.

• Week 1: How you got here  - your losses (both primary and secondary) and how they impact your grief today. 

• Week 2: What challenges you’re facing currently, what’s helpful to your healing and what’s holding you back; what you’re carrying and what you can let go of. 

• Week 3: Developing goals and next steps. 

• Week 4: Where do you want to be: looking at your future and how you want it to look.

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MOVING YOUR GRIEF INTO ACTION (Marianne Reid Schrom)​

Surviving a suicide loss changes us — how we see the world, how we move through our days, and what we feel called to protect, honor, or change. This workshop is designed for suicide loss survivors who feel a quiet stirring — a desire for meaning, direction, grounding, or purpose after loss. Together, we’ll explore how grief can bring clarity to what matters and gently open pathways for meaningful action — within yourself, your relationships, and the wider community. 

• Week 1: Mapping your grief 

• Week 2: Values, voice, and the work your grief is calling you towards

• Week 3: Turning meaning into momentum

• Week 4: Carrying their light forward 

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PARENTING GRIEVING CHILDREN, ADOLESCENTS, AND TEENS (Joan Hoff)​

An exploration of how children, adolescents, and teens grieve a suicide death, how it looks different from yours, what they need, and how to support them on their journey while you too are grieving. 

• Week 1: How children, adolescents, and teens grieve and how it looks different from adults’ grief

• Week 2: Developmental issues and common behaviors you might see at different ages

• Week 3:  What grieving kids need: how to best support their grief, and the importance of play and storytelling

• Week 4: Remembering, rituals, and special days

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SUICIDE 101  (Joanne Harpel)​

A straightforward, practical exploration of we do (and don’t) know from research and lived experience about what causes suicide. Together, we’ll look at:

• What we know (or think we know) about what causes suicide

• The traditional mental illness framework for understanding suicide

• The newer “Suicide Crisis Syndrome” framework for understanding suicide

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URGENT SOUL CARE: THE GUIDED EXPERIENCE (Jenny Baltazar)

Join author, Jenny Baltazar, for this four-week deep dive into Urgent Soul Care, a supportive sanctuary designed to guide you through the physical, mental, and spiritual weight of your loss. Through the lens of mindfulness and radical self-love, you will gain practical tools to soothe your nervous system, quiet the "what-ifs," and gently rebuild a life rooted in compassion. This is a dedicated space to breathe, remember, and tend to the soul that needs you now more than ever.  A copy of Jenny’s book, Urgent Soul Care: Navigating Life After Suicide Loss, will be mailed to each attendee prior to the workshop.  

• Week 1: Body & Safety – Stabilizing your system.

• Week 2: Mind & Mercy – Untangling guilt and "why."

• Week 3: Spirit & Love – Rebuilding radical self-care.

• Week 4: Honoring Growth & Grief – Carrying the light forward.​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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ABOUT THE FACULTY

The faculty are all members of Coping After Suicide’s national support group facilitator corps. For more information, visit https://www.copingaftersuicide.com/support-groups

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Jaletta Albright Desmond (hopeafterws@gmail.com)

After losing her 17-year-old daughter, Jocelyn, to suicide in 2012, Jaletta became a certified Grief Educator and Certified Grief Support Specialist, trained by University of Wisconsin-Madison Continuing Studies. She’s trained as a support group facilitator through both the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and NAMI, and has facilitated both virtual and in-person groups, including for Friends for Survival and David Kessler’s grief.com online support program. As a QPR Gatekeeper Trainer, she’s trained hundreds of high school students and adults in suicide prevention.  

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Joan Hoff   (joanshoff2020@gmail.com)

Joan spent over 30 years working with The Dougy National Center for Grieving Children and Families providing support for adults, children, teens, and families who have experienced a suicide loss. She has extensive support group facilitation experience and has trained support group facilitators nationally and internationally, including with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. Her husband Larry died of suicide in 1995.

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Joanne L. Harpel (joanneharpel@icloud.com)

President of Coping After Suicide, is an international authority on suicide bereavement and postvention response, and the former longtime Senior Director for Public Affairs and Postvention for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, the largest suicide prevention organization in the world. She works with individuals, families, and communities nationwide. Joanne lost her younger brother Stephen to suicide in 1993.

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Steven Karaiskos (stevenjkaraiskos@gmail.com)

A Social Emotional Learning expert with extensive experience facilitating peer support groups based on principles derived from the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, Steven is the Founder of Elpis Consulting, Coaching, & Community Building; Director of Postvention & Community Programs at The Kita Center, a restorative community honoring the lived experience of those impacted by suicide; and the former Senior Director of Community Education and Outreach for Samaritans, a Boston-based suicide prevention and grief support organization. He lost his partner David to suicide in 2009.​

 

Doreen Marshall, PhD  (doreensmarshall@gmail.com)

Doreen has worked with adults, teens, and families who have experienced a suicide loss throughout her professional career in mental health. She has many years of support group facilitation experience and has trained clinicians and peer support facilitators nationally, including previously as the Vice President of Programs and Mission Engagement at the  American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) and as Associate Director of The Link Counseling Center's National Resource Center for Suicide Prevention and Aftercare. Her fiance Chris died by suicide in 1995.

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Marianne Reid Schrom  (mar.schrom@gmail.com)

The survivor of her brother John's 2007 suicide, Marianne has extensive experience as a suicide bereavement support group facilitator and educator, including for the New York State Funeral Directors Association, the New York State Tribute Foundation, and LivingWorks. She is a former member of the national Loss and Bereavement Council of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. Early in her career, Marianne was a high school teacher for a decade, during which time she lost more than one student to suicide. ​​​​​​