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Social Workers Have Key Role in PBS Special on Grief

John and Kim Ruocco and their sons Billy and Joey. Photo courtesy of the Newburyport Current.

Major John Ruocco survived a tour of duty in Iraq but committed suicide a month before his second tour  began in 2005. The Marine Corps helicopter pilot, who suffered from depression, is survived by a wife and two sons.

“One of the many things that was difficult was how to tell the children that he had died … and that he died by suicide,” his wife Kim said in this article in The Newburyport Current in Massachusetts.

Kim got a master’s degree in social work from Boston University. She now helps other families deal with grief as the director of suicide outreach and education for the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, or TAPS, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that helps military families deal with grief.

Kim, her sons, and other families will tell how they handled grief on “When Families Grieve,” a primetime special airing at April 14 at 8 p.m. Eastern on PBS. The program features television newscaster Katie Couric and the Sesame Street Muppets. The program will air in conjunction with  the Month of the Military Child & Month of the Young Child.

The program has another tie to social workers besides Kim Ruocco. Mary Owen, LCSW, clinical director of the Wendt Center for Loss and Healing, sits on the program’s advisory board.

To find out more information about the program click here. And to see a preview of “When Families Grieve” click here.

To learn more about how social workers help families deal with loss visit the National Association of Social Workers’ “Help Starts Here” Grief and Loss Web pages by clicking here.

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1 Comment

  1. Kim is doing great work that is so much needed. War brings so much tragedy and we have to help the other victims of this war who are the families of those that are physically and emotionally injured and scarred.
    The children and surviving parent hopefully will come to understand that their parent /spouse ultimately and honorably gave their life for their country whether it was on the battlefield or at home. Thank you Kim!

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