Through our National Center for Grieving Children and Families we provide support and training locally, nationally and internationally to individuals and organizations seeking to assist children in grief.
Each month, The Dougy Center helps hundreds of children, teens, young adults and their parents grieving a death. This past Father’s Day, The Dougy Center’s home for the last 20 years was completely destroyed in an arson fire, causing The Dougy Center participants, volunteers and staff to grieve another loss. To continue to meet the needs of the community, The Dougy Center has set up a temporary location for its peer support groups in a house on N.E. Glisan, and hosted an Open House so to celebrate and thank its supporters.
The Dougy Center on KPTV Channel 12
The Dougy Center on KOIN, Channel 6
October 2009
Perhaps because the Dougy Center has provided grieving services and support to children since 1982, the dedicated staff was uniquely prepared to face a major trauma themselves — the near destruction of their main center in Southeast Portland in an arson attack in June.
New York Times
Lizette Alvarez
Thursday October 06, 2005
MMELANIE SOVERN, a 15-year-old with thick black hair and forgiving eyes, often feels her mother’s tug when she is alone in her room after school. It is during those moments that she will reach for the videotape, slide it into the machine and settle back into her mother’s words, the richness of her voice, the solace of her smile.
A Dozen Lessons I’ve Learned from Grieving Children and Adolescents
Donna L. Schuurman, Ed.D.
National Director, The Dougy Center
I’m frequently introduced as an “expert” in the field of children and death, referencing my involvement over the last sixteen years at The Dougy Center, The National Center for Grieving Children & Families. Over these years, more than 12,000 children and teens, and their parents or adult care givers have shared their journeys through grief with each other, our staff, and volunteer facilitators. All shared membership in a club no one wants to join with the common denominator of the death of a family member or close friend.
Hillsboro Argus
Susan Gordanier
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Ask Debbie Roth about the benefits of having The Dougy Center in Hillsboro.
For two years, Roth took time off from work and made the long drive to the eastside Portland facility so her son, Andre, could participate in its sessions for grieving children.
Roth’s husband, Herman, died unexpectedly in the middle of the night July 17, 2004, when Andre was less than four years old. The child slept through the 911 call and the noise of emergency vehicles and workers, so he hadn’t seen his father’s body taken from their Aloha home. Roth recalls sitting him down later and saying, “Honey, you haven’t asked me where Daddy is.”
Hillsboro Argus Susan Gordanier
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
The Dougy Center has found a home of its own in Washington County.
The nonprofit, which provides services for grieving children and their families, will open its doors 3 to 6 p.m. Sept. 4 to celebrate its newest facility in Suite A of the Linklater Commons, 230 NE Second Ave.
The Oregonian
Elizabeth Suh
Thursday September 04, 2008
Fana and Getnet Gottschalk lost their parents in Ethiopia, but in Hillsboro they’ve found comfort by meeting other children whose parents have died.
The siblings were adopted by Hillsboro parents Laurie and Don Gottschalk, who signed them up for peer support groups at The Dougy Center, a nonprofit that connects grieving children and families.
A tragic death sends a Canby family in search of answers for their future
The Canby Herald
John Baker
September 13, 2008
On a lonely stretch of highway near Banks a year ago this week, life changed dramatically for the Boyer family.
Returning from Sand Lake on a September beach trip, Stacie Boyer lost her life when her car collided with another along that road. It was a cataclysmic event that sent her husband Todd and children McKinzie and Nick careening down a path strewn with sorrow, anger, grief and, at last, healing.
