Holding Space for Grief: Practical Interventions for Mental Health & Substance Use Providers
This interactive training provides behavioral health and substance use professionals with practical, evidence-based tools for working with grief in clinical settings. Participants will learn concrete interventions drawn from CBT, Motivational Interviewing, ACT, somatic grounding, meaning reconstruction, and grief group work, with a focus on real-world application.
Topics include complicated grief, cumulative loss, trauma and grief overlap, substance use as coping, nervous-system regulation, assessment strategies, and culturally responsive grief care. Attendees will leave with immediately usable techniques, activities, and clinical frameworks to better support grieving clients across diverse populations.
3 CEUs offered!
Date: June 16th, 2026 9:00 AM – 12:00 PM
Location: Hybrid
In-person at Behavioral Healthcare Services
1811 King St #2nd, Portsmouth, VA 23704
OR virtually via Zoom
Trainer: Brittany Zharnest
Brittany Zharnest, LCSW, is a Certified Grief Educator with over ten years of experience in behavioral health and substance use treatment. Her background includes crisis services, acute psychiatric care, trauma treatment, military veteran services, foster care, private practice, community mental health, and grief-focused nonprofit work.
Her clinical approach emphasizes practical, compassionate, and trauma-informed care that helps clients build emotional insight, resilience, and meaningful connection. She is currently developing a self-care guide for helping professionals and exploring ways to integrate the Enneagram into therapeutic practice to support self-awareness and treatment engagement.