Cal Brown remembers watching the children she shares with her husband, Michael Brown Sr., struggle to process their grief, loss and trauma when their brother Michael Brown Jr. was shot and killed on Aug. 9, 2014.
“Although I had the capacity and the capability to put my children in therapy, that was really the only outsource that they had,” Brown recalled. “There was no safe space for them to go to. Everybody said ‘how are your kids doing? But nobody said 'hey, we created a space for kids who have suffered the same loss as your kids.’”
Brown wanted to change that. In 2016, she drafted a plan to ensure other kids wouldn’t have to navigate the aftermath of trauma and grief alone.
“I started working with children whose parents I already worked with and [saw] the significance of me taking a journal or a book and sitting in the middle of the floor with a teddy bear and opening the floor for them to be unapologetically themselves,” Brown said. “Anything that's heavy on your heart that you feel like you want to talk about that you haven't had the chance to talk to your parents about, let's talk about it."
That gave way to her new program, Children Overcoming Painful Experiences with Support. It is the latest program from the Michael Brown Sr. Chosen for Change Organization. Brown, the co-founder and executive director of the organization, said COPES aims to fill a gap for St. Louis County kids ages 5 to 17.
"We want them to understand that these conversations could and should be had in a safe space and we're going to give them the tools that they need to cope, heal, and reinvent themselves and provide them with some coping skills that they can use on their journey once they complete the six week cohort of COPES," Brown said.
The free program is fully funded by the St. Louis County Children’s Service Fund and St. Peter’s United Church of Christ and lasts six weeks per cohort. Each group of 25 kids will participate in peer-led group discussions, learn a variety of coping strategies, as well as access to a licensed behavioral therapist and certified grief coach.
"When we talk about grief, loss and trauma the first thing people think of is death,” said Brown. “But that's not the only thing that grief can be associated with. You have children who are kids in the middle who are being affected by divorce or a broken relationship. Here in the city of St. Louis you have children who are survivors of gun violence who have been shot at a young age."
COPES will provide each participant with a bag that will include a journal, pen, water bottle, shirt, a grief bear from Build-A-Bear and a Rubik’s Cube. Brown said she learned that the Rubik’s Cube is an unconventional but effective tool to process grief.
"We'll teach them how to solve a Rubik’s Cube without all of the extra confusion that comes with it,” Brown said. “We're going to teach them how they can do it and have the ability to navigate through it, and use it as a coping skill when they're sad or they're upset and they're triggered."
The program is also an opportunity to heal and change the narrative on generational trauma.
“If we don’t heal this generation, they’ll birth the children who will either walk you across the street or kill you,” Brown said. “So we have to do our due diligence to ensure that our children are put in safe spaces and given the ability and the tools to heal from whatever it is that they go through in life."
Registration for the first COPES cohort ends Monday. Participants must be St. Louis County residents. The first of four COPES cohorts kicks off on Jan. 3.
The Michael Brown Sr. Chosen for Change Organization hopes to expand the program to the city of St. Louis in the coming years.
