Experiencing the loss of a loved one is an inevitable part of life.

By the time they graduate from high school, 90 percent of children will have faced the death of a family member or friend. But surprisingly few people who work closely with children, including teachers and other school personnel, know how to talk about death and loss with their students.

David Schonfeld wants to change that.

“They say the main reason they don’t talk to kids or reach out to them after a death is because they’ve never been trained,” he said. “They are afraid they are going to do the wrong thing, say the wrong thing, or do something that makes it worse.”

A nationally recognized expert in bereavement, school crisis, and developmental and behavioral pediatrics, Schonfeld has focused his career on exploring how children understand and adjust to illness and death. As the newest member of the USC School of Social Work faculty, he plans to share that knowledge through the National Center for School Crisis and Bereavement, an organization he founded as a resource for educators and school administrators.

Schonfeld has plenty of experience helping school personnel learn how to respond to a crisis. In the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks in New York, the city’s department of education asked him to coordinate crisis response workshops for more than 1,100 schools across the city.

“He worked for months, traveling from New Haven by train, in a very concerted, targeted effort to make sure every single crisis team in every single school and every district was trained,” said Marleen Wong, a clinical professor and associate dean of field education at the USC School of Social Work who met Schonfeld through her work on school crisis and recovery.

“I remember his stories about being stuck at a train station somewhere outside in one of the far boroughs and having a real hard time getting back to his home,” she added. “When he makes a promise, he keeps that promise.”

In addition to his work in New York, Schonfeld has offered support to communities affected by hurricanes, tornados and other natural disasters. He worked with educators in Aurora, Colo.; Newtown, Conn.; and Marysville, Wash., following mass shootings.

It’s a calling he fell into almost by accident.

On track

 

Schonfeld had earned his bachelor’s and medical degrees at Boston University and was midway through a residency in pediatrics at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia when he spoke with a supervisor about his career path.

 

“I told him I’ve learned how to take care of children’s illnesses, but I didn’t go into pediatrics because I love illnesses,” he said. “I went into it because I am really fascinated by kids. I like the way they think and develop and grow, and I didn’t know anything more about that than when I started. He said, oh, you want behavioral pediatrics.”

At the suggestion of his training supervisor, Schonfeld pursued a fellowship in the top-ranked developmental and behavioral pediatrics program at the University of Maryland.

During his first year of fellowship training, when administrators from a local elementary school sought advice on helping several students who had lost a parent, he volunteered to talk with them. The school leaders didn’t realize this was his first presentation and scheduled an assembly with students, teachers, and parents and invited the media. After a local newspaper covered the event, Schonfeld was inundated with requests.

“I just kept getting called,” he said. “If there was a student who was killed or there was a car accident or a staff member died, my name got out, and they would call me.”

A growing reputation

After his fellowship in Maryland, Schonfeld joined the faculty at Yale University. In 1991, he participated in a meeting involving school professionals, elected officials and faculty members at the Yale Child Study Center to discuss how to help children cope with the Gulf War.

“During the meeting, the comment was made that kids in New Haven were far more impacted by the violence in New Haven than by the war,” he said.

He began working with school systems in the region to help students dealing with violence and death, much of it related to gang activity. As his reputation developed, Schonfeld began conducting trainings throughout the state and country, ultimately leading to his work in New York following the Sept. 11 attacks.

Despite his full-time job at Yale University — and later as director of developmental and behavioral pediatrics at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center and pediatrician-in-chief and chair of pediatrics at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children — Schonfeld said he felt obliged to respond to crisis events and offer his expertise.

“There were few people that were prepared to meet that need, and I didn’t feel like I could walk away,” he said.

He agreed to commit half of his time during several years to oversee training of school crisis teams throughout New York City public schools after the events of Sept. 11.

Widespread need

Although he has witnessed an increased interest in preparing for school-based crises, Schonfeld said much more extensive outreach and training is needed.

A survey of educators by the American Federation of Teachers revealed that only 7 percent of teachers had received any training related to bereavement. Only 3 percent of school districts even offered any training, he said.

“Why aren’t teachers learning to do this before they get into the classroom?” Schonfeld said. “They are going to meet kids who have experienced loss and are dealing with difficult events in their lives.”

In 2005, he received support from the September 11th Children’s Fund to establish the National Center for School Crisis and Bereavement to prepare schools and other community groups to help children grieve and handle crises. Several years ago, he received additional funding from the New York Life Foundation to expand the center and establish the Coalition to Support Grieving Students.

Bringing together national organizations of teachers, administrators, superintendents, principals, school social workers, counselors, nurses and psychologists, Schonfeld helped establish an online resource (www.grievingstudents.org) and developed educational materials on grief and bereavement for school personnel and parents.

“David has created this organization to provide consultation and training to schools that request this kind of assistance,” Wong said. “He has engendered a sense of trust, and school districts know that he will do everything he can to resolve the trauma children have experienced and bring them back to a new normal of resuming their education and relationships with teachers.”

Future plans

As he transitions to his new role at the USC School of Social Work, Schonfeld hopes to significantly expand the national center, offering more training-oriented services and introducing research and evaluation components. He envisions conducting remote training sessions through the school’s Virtual Academic Center platform and involving students in the national center, potentially through field placements and research initiatives.

“The strong national reputation of the university and its priority on academics and evidence-based practice made this a great opportunity to accomplish the goals of the center,” he said.

Marilyn Flynn, the school’s dean, said Schonfeld has an equally impressive reputation and a deep understanding of the need for interdisciplinary approaches to issues such as childhood trauma.

“In the whole range of recent social catastrophes, school violence has been one of the most important,” she said. “We are just beginning to understand how profound and long-lasting the effects of trauma are not just on students and families, but on the community, on teachers. He’s bringing to us a different perspective on this kind of attack.”