A Safe Place to
Grieve, Connect and Find Hope
Common Ground Grief Center provides a safe, welcoming place where children, teens, young adults and their families can connect with others who understand the experience of losing someone important. Through free peer support groups and age-appropriate activities, participants can share, remember and move through grief without feeling alone.
Our Mission
The Mission of Common Ground is to provide a safe place where children, teens, young adults and their families grieving a death can come together and share their experiences as they begin the journey through the grief process.
Our Grief Support Programs
Common Ground is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit grief support center located in Manasquan, New Jersey. Our facility was thoughtfully created to feel comfortable, welcoming and safe for grieving children and families.
Each room offers a different way for participants to explore and express their grief. Activities may include:
- Peer discussion and talking circles
- Art and creative expression
- Music
- Sand play
- Puppetry and imaginative play
- Movement and physical activity
- Age-appropriate grief education
- Memory-making activities
These experiences give children and teens choices in how they communicate their thoughts, feelings and memories.
We provide open-ended peer support groups for children and teens ages 6 to 18, as well as a young adult grief support group for participants ages 19 to 30. Children and teens are placed into groups based on age and developmental needs.
Because grief affects the entire family, we also offer a concurrent support group for the parent or caregiver of a participating child or teen. Groups meet every other week during evening hours and are provided at no cost to participating families.
All support groups are led by trained volunteer facilitators under the direction of Common Ground’s professional staff. Our peer support program is based on the model pioneered by The Dougy Center for Grieving Children & Families.
Common Ground also provides grief education, professional training and resources for schools, community organizations and agencies that support grieving children and families.
Our Humble Beginnings
Common Ground Grief Center was founded in 2009 by Lynn M. Snyder. During her many years spent counseling children in private practice, Lynn decided she wanted to do more for her community after a cluster of suicides took place at the Jersey Shore town of Manasquan.
Lynn went on to receive additional training in grief through ADEC (The Association for Death Education and Counseling), where she earned her Fellow in Thanatology. She then went on to complete training at Dougy Center’s Summer Institute where she whole-heartedly embraced the peer support model of their founder, Beverly Chappell. Lynn walked away from that training with a newfound purpose and understanding that what grieving children and teens needed was to be with others who “get them” and truly understand what they are going through. They needed a safe space to share their stories in a non-judgmental environment surrounded by caring adults who would really listen.
In September of 2009, Common Ground was born from the belief that the children and teens who would utilize the center would indeed be “on common ground.”
The first peer support group began in the basement of a local church with just 3 children. By the end of the first year, the need for a larger space was apparent. The next location, and our current “home” has been our facility since 2010. We recently acquired the building adjacent to our current home which is our new teen center, where all teen and young adults support groups meet.
Our Commitment to Community
We are committed to providing on-going peer support groups for children, teens and young adults at no cost to participants. Our program has and always will remain on-going because children understand their loss differently as they reach developmental milestones, therefore, their understanding of death and their experience of it will change over time. During the high school years, grief can sometimes re-surface with more intense emotions due to the many milestones teens reach during this time.
We remain steadfast in supporting our community in crisis such as when tragic deaths occur or any other related tragedies.