Grief Beyond Loss:
Understanding the many forms of grief in serving unaccompanied youth
Grief is often associated with the loss of a loved one. For many unaccompanied youth, grief is constant in their life, carried with them as they navigate everyday life. For advocates supporting unaccompanied youth, many are also experiencing grief. Advocates are experiencing grief accompanied with moral distress as they witness programmatic shifts, policy changes, and systemic barriers that are affecting youth every day.
Grief is woven into the experience of migration. It can appear in moments of transition, uncertainty, separation, and identity formation. The migration journey often requires and signifies leaving behind more than a place. Unaccompanied youth can grieve the separation from their parents, siblings, extended family members, and friends who remain in their country of origin. Holidays, birthdays, challenges, and successes all become reminders of relationships that have changed their form, and their journey that continues to shape their identity. This chronic grief is compounded by immigration policies, detention, family separation, and fear of separation.
Many youth also grieve a future that once seemed possible. Their dreams of educational opportunities, career advancement, financial stability, or family reunification may feel unattainable due to legal status, systemic barriers, and increased challenges. This grief is not only present but marked by ambiguity, fear, and uncertainty. The youth has not lost something that has existed or that they have experienced, instead they are holding on to the loss of the dream of what things could be, if human rights and dignity were honored and respected. As advocates, recognizing the less visible forms of grief can deepen our understanding of a youth’s experience and strengthen the care we provide.
The experience of grief does not present sadness alone. Culture plays a large role in how grief is expressed and processed. Grief can show up as anxiety, irritability, physical symptoms, withdrawal, depression, or persistent exhaustion. Similarly, healing from grief does not look the same for every individual. Some youth may process grief through prayer, religious services, storytelling, music, dance, community gatherings, food, connection with nature, or remaining connected to family and friends. As advocates, understanding grief through a broader lens allows us to validate experiences that can many times go unnamed.
As advocates working with unaccompanied youth, you are not only supporting youth who are grieving, but this is a distressing moment for advocates as well. Career grief is real. As advocates, we are watching programs shift, teams shrink, and funding disappear. For advocates serving unaccompanied youth, their role is not just a job; it is a calling, a source of identity, and a community. Many advocates are grieving professional relationships, history, partnerships, and support from those who have been a part of the community.
Similarly, career grief can accompany moral injury. This grief can happen with policy changes or changes in eligibility for services, all which make it harder to support clients in a way they deserve. Moral injury has lured for the past year as advocates witness clients struggle with fewer options, stricter eligibility rules, long waitlists, or delayed cases, and feeling like they are not doing enough. Despite the challenges and grief, you have continued to show up to support unaccompanied youth; we see that.
If as an advocate you are carrying career grief; you are not alone. It’s okay to grieve. You are grieving because the work you do, your community, your colleagues, and the unaccompanied youth you support; all matter. Your ability to care is not something that should be eliminated, it continues to be one of the biggest strengths you carry. Balancing care and hope with grief is important as we continue to fight for the rights of the unaccompanied youth.
Supporting immigrant youth involves recognizing that the migration journey is an act of hope that can come with profound grief both for the unaccompanied youth and the advocates supporting them. By broadening our understanding of grief, honoring cultural strengths and validating the complexity in each person’s journey, we can help foster healing, resilience, and connection; not only in unaccompanied youth, but in the community of advocates serving them.
Thank you for everything you do for your clients, your colleagues, and yourself.
Remember, CILA is here to support you!
By CILA Social Work Team