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Lovely. Loved. Loving. Lover.

When loss enters a school community, leaders are often expected to know what to do next.

How do you support grieving students? How do you care for staff while they are also caring for others? How do you help a school community move through crisis, recovery, and what comes after?

In partnership with the Center for Applied Research Solutions (@carsrp_ca), the National Center for School Crisis & Bereavement (@schoolcrisisorg) and the New York Life Foundation (@newyorklife), the Grief-Sensitive Schools Leadership Initiative (GSSLI) is a new national community that equips school and district leaders with the knowledge, tools, and peer support needed to lead through grief and loss with confidence and compassion.

GSSLI provides no-cost access to advanced learning, practical resources, and a national network of grief and school leadership experts, including:

• State and county education leaders
• District leaders and initiative directors
• Principals, vice principals, and deans
• Counselors, coaches, and social workers
• Teacher leaders and other school-based leaders

Leading a school community through grief is complex. No school leader should have to navigate this work alone.

Lead with empathy. Respond with expertise.

Stay connected for upcoming content, resources, and programming: bit.ly/grief-sensitive-leaders

#Grief
#GriefSensitiveSchools
#SchoolLeadership
#EducationalLeadership
#StudentWellbeing
#CollectiveCare
#LeadwithEmpathy
#GSSLI

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Today is 44. It's taking me time to find all the words because each year is nestled in the context of everything that came before. Some stories don't want to be dissected, they want to be told whole.

But here are some snapshots for the altar of the internet.

This year i...

Learned to cherish my laughter and those who enjoy it

I loved myself again and again, into the marrow of my bones

I no longer take my health or life for granted

I got on my bike again

I picked up my pen again

I embraced my weird again (hello emo teen self)

I set difficult boundaries i needed to thrive

I finally stopped letting fear keep me from what i most want

I took risks i never thought i could (dating, dancing, surgery, rejection etc)

I got lots of tattoos

I cried from the barrel of my chest

I centered my relationship to self, spirit and my daughter

I started learning more intentionally about somatics and embodiment

I continued to evolve how I show up in solidarity & politicized healing

I formed new connections, rejuvenated old ones and let the withering ones go

I learned to thrive amidst the grief

I'm no longer available to anyone or anything that only wants pieces of me.

I arrive whole or not at all.

I am so soft vulnerable. And if you know my story, then you know this is my greatest accomplishment.

I also feel really hot, not because of how I look, but because I finally really like every inch of me

Many thanks to those who accompany me thru it, rain or shine, ride or die. I am because we are.

The true measure of friendship is repair, not laughter.

Love to those who let me go, hope you're shining on other stars.

Miss you always Mari. Thank you for showing me how to live again.

BDAY WISHES:

BDAY TIPS
I'm happy & growing but broke. My contracts have dried up in this climate. Could use some support getting to the next thing and my computer is hanging on by a thread. Venmo: CRV510 (sunflower Pic)

JOB REFERRALS
I'm looking for remote associate therapist positions in CA. Also open to wellness & trauma sensitive contracting opportunities or adjunct positions. I can also teach trauma informed yoga!

Thank you for putting in a good word. 👍🏽

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Two weeks into 2026, and we continue to be reminded that there are many ‘aftermaths’ we may all be experiencing individually and collectively at any given time.

In one week we come together for “Life After Loss: A Special, No-Cost Two-Day Virtual Summit Exploring Grief Aftermath for Educators, Mental Health Providers, School Leaders, and Child Advocates,” hosted by the Center for Applied Research Solutions team and made possible through a Grief Reach Grant from the New York Life Foundation & the National Alliance for Children’s Grief.

We offer a no-cost two-day event, and today we highlight what we’re so moved to host on Day 2 - A Special Space for Providers’ Processing – Friday, January 23, 2026 , 9:00am – 12:00pm PT / 12:00pm – 3:00pm ET

2 Continuing Education Hours are offered for attending Day 2 which includes:

>>> Opening and Framing for the Day with Oriana

>> A moving keynote from Candice Rose Valenzuela, where they explore their own grief experiences and how that has informed their way of being personally and professionally in their work toward freedom.

>> A panel featuring educators and practitioners Jerica Coffey Ebony Johnson and Jesus Solorio who will share ways they have worked to sustain themselves in the work and resources and practices that have helped them along the way

>> A somatic practice with Sue Kuyper that connects being present not just in mind, but in body, as we grief to accessing more of who are through movement

>> Oriana Ides will also lead us through an art-based integration practice allowing us to map our grief, before closing out our time.

Register today and bring your colleagues. https://www.cars-rp.org/life-after-loss/
Life after loss is a journey of adapting to a changed world, finding new meaning, and integrating loss into our life stories. Join us and come together.
#GriefSupport #MentalHealth #Educators #freeprofessionaldevelopment #NewYorkLifeFoundation

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$Today marks a year since the wildfires in Los Angeles. Today, thousands of people march protesting the murder of Renee Good. Today, teachers will come to a classroom with an empty seat, and someone is sitting in traffic, at a café, at a cubicle, or on the subway yearning for one more conversation, one more embrace. Grief is all around us; bereavement is real and right, and loss is here. Violence is meant to fracture us. Grief can bring us together. In two weeks, we come together for “Life After Loss: A Special, No-Cost Two-Day Virtual Summit Exploring Grief Aftermath for Educators, Mental Health Providers, School Leaders, and Child Advocates,” hosted by the Center for Applied Research Solutions team and made possible through a Grief Reach Grant from the New York Life Foundation & the National Alliance for Children’s Grief. We offer a no-cost two-day event, and today we highlight what we’re so moved to host on Day 1, January 22, 2026, the Main Summit (9:00 a.m.- 2:00 p.m. PT / 11:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. CT /12:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. ET) Day 1 includes: >> A moving keynote by Teddy McGlynn-Wright, author of the Integrative Trauma and Healing Framework and belonging builder at In the Works >> Six workshops (you’ll choose 1!) led by Leora Wolf-Prusan, Niki Magtoto, Oriana Ides, Tina Rocha and Carla Fernandez that range from COVID 19 meaning making to poetry writing to children’s bereavement supporting to suicide aftermath processing to ritual and community creating. >> Two discussion panels that explore grief’s intersections with polycrisis: the experience leading the thing professionally you are personally navigating. One discussion will specifically focus on leadership and the other on community grief aftermath...Could not be more timely. >> A closing keynote by Zelana Montminy on the psychology of resilience and reinvention and how to hold it all together while falling apart. Come for all of it, come for some of it. Everything will be recorded except for the workshops. Register today and bring your colleagues. https://www.cars-rp.org/life-after-loss/$

Oriana Ides

@guavabelli