Families experiencing grief become members of “the club no one wants to join” (Schurrman, 2004, para 1)¹. A popular model of bereavement care to assist these families is the self-help/mutual aid group, known as The Dougy Center model, named after The Dougy Center, a non-profit grief center located in Portland, Oregon. Through a national survey of grief centers based on The Dougy Center model, as well as follow-up interviews with the staff of these centers, this study assessed ways in which grief centers are providing outreach to ethnoracial minority groups, and identified successful strategies in reaching these client groups. Themes identified from data in the quantitative phase were also found in the qualitative phase. Respondents reported collaboration, especially with schools, to be a useful strategy in providing outreach to racial and ethnic minority groups. At the same time, grief centers faced challenges in providing outreach, primary among these being issues pertaining to cultural differences between the dominant culture and those populations grief centers were attempting to reach.

¹Schuurman, D. (2004). The club no one wants to join: A dozen lessons I've learned from grieving children and adolescents. Retrieved May 2, 2006, from http://www.dougy.org/defaultasp?pid=4985010