(This is a LIVE VIRTUAL event. Access to a recording will not be available.)

Presented by

Valerie Smith, LCSW

This training examines the often-overlooked experience of young adults (approximately ages 18–35) who have lost a parent or parental figure. Although grief in childhood, adolescence, and later adulthood has been widely studied, bereavement during young adulthood presents a distinct convergence of developmental, relational, and identity-based challenges that are frequently misunderstood in both clinical practice and broader social contexts.

Drawing upon clinical expertise and her work as founder of Millennials in Mourning, an online support community for bereaved young adults, Valerie Smith, LCSW, CFTG, presents an integrated psychoeducational framework to support practitioner understanding of grief when parental loss coincides with the transition to adulthood. The training explores how grief during this developmental period impacts attachment patterns, identity formation, educational and career trajectories, and relational functioning, including milestone experiences such as wedding planning in the absence of a parent.

The training further offers trauma-informed, developmentally attuned clinical interventions, along with holistic approaches to grief processing, including ecotherapy.

Learning Objectives
As a result of attending this course, learners will be able to:

1. Identify at least three developmental and psychosocial factors that distinguish parental loss in young adulthood from bereavement in childhood or later adulthood.
2. Describe the effects of parental loss on attachment security, identity formation, and relational functioning in young adults.
3. Explain how social invalidation and secondary losses, including financial instability and loss of home or community, can complicate grief in bereaved young adults.
4. Apply psychoeducational interventions that normalize grief responses and support emotional regulation in young adult clients.
5. Integrate holistic, trauma-informed approaches—such as ecotherapy, mindfulness, and meaning-making exercises—to foster post-traumatic growth and reconnection.

About Valerie Smith

Valerie Smith, LCSW, CFTG, is a psychotherapist, practice owner, and certified forest therapy guide (Association of Nature and Forest Therapy). She is the owner of Sugar Maple Counseling and Ecotherapy in New York, where she specializes in bereavement, developmental trauma, and new motherhood, integrating EMDR, IADC (a modified EMDR therapy for grief), DBT, and nature-based interventions into her practice. Valerie's professional focus on grief is deeply personal: she lost both of her parents as a young adult, an experience that inspired her lifelong dedication to supporting others through loss. She is also the founder of Millennials in Mourning, an online support group for young adults navigating the death of a parent. Her clinical and educational work centers on bridging grief, identity formation, and resilience during early adulthood, blending evidence-based psychotherapy with nature-based and spiritually integrative practices.