Longtime Greenville residents will remember the tragic death of Corporal Stephen J. Ballard of the Delaware State Police over six years ago in April 2017. He left behind a legacy of dedication to his job as well as a devoted wife and beloved stepdaughter who had to learn to cope with his absence.

To help her daughter in this endeavor, Louise Cummings turned to Supporting Kidds, a nonprofit based in Hockessin that has been helping children aged 5-18 who lost an immediate family member understand their grief and adapt to their new lives since its start in 1989. Offerings include a 6-week bereavement group for both kids and their caregivers, theme-based groups, yoga, art activities, family fun days, individual counseling, a lending library and more. "You don't have to do everything," Louise shares. "Some kids will just come to group, some kids will just come to individual counseling, and some will do both. We're different than a normal treatment center where you would come in, have a consult, finish a program and then get discharged. We don't discharge anybody."

Instead, children can return time and time again to a building that has been designed to foster connections, with warm, welcoming spaces that all feature elements like a feelings board. "You'll see this in every single room. This is the core of what we do, which is getting kids to understand how they really feel," Louise says. "It's a very safe and calming place for the kids." 

"One of the things that we love about the center here is that when kids come here, they know that every other child here has lost somebody," continues Louise. "They know when they come in, everyone can understand what they are going through and that they've gone through something similar, whether they've lost a mom, a dad or a sibling." Of course, not everyone can come to the center, so the Supporting Kidds staff also ran 27 groups in 12 area schools last year, thanks to a county grant that allows them to offer 75 programs over 3 years as part of their strategic growth. 

Grants like these are very important to the survival of Supporting Kidds because "grief is not a billable code," says Louise, "so we actually can't bill insurance companies. This is why, as a nonprofit, it is so important that we have the community support for our fundraisers and connecting with local companies because we see all children, whether they can pay or not." About half of the center's funding comes from grants, while the other half comes from community fundraisers like Do More 24 and the Delaware Dental Foundation's golf tournament. "Our biggest need is to reach the community," entreats Louise. "We just need more people who really care about what we're doing that want to help and get the word out."

Greenville's Christy Fleming is one such person – she is the one who asked that we feature Louise – but Louise herself is another. "Supporting Kidds had almost closed back in 2019 and that's really how I got involved," she reveals. "My daughter was a client here and they had said she would have one more individual counseling session and then it was done, and I thought, 'How is that possible?'" After learning that Supporting Kidds had been folded under Children and Families First due to financial and management issues, Louise ended up working with the team at Children and Families First to reach an agreement in December 2019 that she would make Supporting Kidds independent again. "And then COVID hit and I was like, 'Oh my goodness! I can't fundraise!'" Louise remembers.

Little did she know that in just one month they would raise the $50,000 necessary to show that they could maintain their programs. After a year of legalities and paperwork, Louise took over as interim Executive Director on February 1, 2021. She later officially became the Executive Director in July 2022 as part of a grant from the Longwood Foundation. "Supporting Kidds really helped my daughter name her emotions and say how she felt. It definitely is a passion of mine. I love it, so I want to make sure that it is sustainable so that it can always continue to thrive and grow," enthuses Louise. 

Louise hopes that growth includes better support for children in the lower part of the state. "Right now, the majority of the families that we see are in New Castle County, primarily because of our location, but we do have families that come from Kent County and we've had a couple that come from Sussex," she relays. 

Admirable as that goal is, Louise has one that is even loftier: "Part of my vision is to expand what we do because what we do here is great, but I don't want it to just stay here, and I don't want to just do the same thing over and over again," states Louise. "I want us to be reinventing how we talk about death and how we work with kids even before that happens, because it's something everyone is going to experience." 

*****SIDEBAR*****
Supporting KIDDS provides a compassionate pathway to healing for grieving children and their families and empowers the community to support them in the grieving process. We believe that grieving children and their families can mobilize their own capacities to heal when provided with support and information. For more information, visit supportingkidds.org.