2-day Sibshop Training

THIS 2-DAY TRAINING WILL BE ON 

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2024  FROM 9AM-3PM

And on SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2024 FROM 9AM-3PM

LUNCH on both days is included in registration donation fee

Participants can include:

• Those who want to become a certified Sibshop facilitator
• Let Grace In keiki volunteers, adult grieving siblings, grieving parents, family members, service providers, and other community members who wish to learn more about how to support grieving siblings

Primary goal: To train new Sibshop facilitators and administrators; adult grieving siblings, grief service providers, parents and others want to learn how to run a local Sibshop.

During the two days of the Sibshop training, you will:

• Learn about siblings’ life-long concerns
• Find out how to organize a local Sibshop
• Experience what a Sibshop is all about as local bereaved siblings join us for a four-hour Demonstration Sibshop.

Trainees must attend both days of the Sibshop training. Upon completion of the two-day training, you are considered a Certified “first-generation” Sibshop facilitator and may (upon registration) start your own local Sibshop.

Secondary goal: To educate parents, adult siblings, service providers, and others about siblings’ ever-changing issues across the lifespan. 

This is an in-person training.

Sibshop facilitators should share some varied core skills. It is desired that Sibshop facilitators:

•  Have a working knowledge of the unique concerns experienced by grieving siblings.
• Have personal or professional experience with people who are grieving and with their families.
• Be familiar with active listening principles.
• Have experience leading groups, preferably groups of children.
• Convey a sense of joy, wonder and play.
• Be somewhat physically fit.
• Appreciate that the Sibshop participants, not the facilitators, are the experts on grieving a brother or sister..

Emily Holl, Training Facilitator  

The training will be facilitated by Emily Holl, Director of the Sibling Support Project. Emily is a social worker, author, trainer, and sibling. Since 2003, she has worked in the disability field and has provided workshops, training, and groups for siblings, families, and individuals with disabilities. She has presented and written extensively on sibling issues, has conducted and published sibling research, and has facilitated future planning workshops for adult siblings and their families, and co-facilitated Sibshops for school-age brothers and sisters of children with disabilities. Upon completion of her MSW, Emily was a social worker in New York City serving families of young children with disabilities.

In 2015, Emily joined St. Paul College in Minnesota, and became the director of academic support, where she oversaw access and disability resources, participated on the College’s behavior intervention team, and served on the equity and inclusion committee.

Emily has served as a board member of the national Sibling Leadership Network (SLN), and she founded sibsNY, the New York state chapter of the SLN. Emily has written about her own sibling experiences in blogs, magazines and books such as Thicker than Water. Emily was an author and a co-editor of The Sibling Survival Guide: Indispensable Information for Adult Brothers and Sisters of People with Disabilities, published by Woodbine House in 2014.

Emily earned a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Massachusetts, a Master of Fine Arts from Columbia University, and a Master of Social Work from Hunter College at the City University of New York.

Emily and her husband Tom reside in the Greater Seattle area and have two young sons. Emily is the primary family support for her brother, and she is grateful for the “village” of people who help.