Losing a parent can derail teens' lives. A high school grief club aims to help

Shortly after Elizabeth George started her freshman year in high school last fall, her parents tested positive for COVID-19. And Elizabeth stepped up to take care of them.

"I was running the house, sort of," says the soft-spoken 15-year-old. "I was giving them medicine, seeing if everyone is OK."

Elizabeth's mother recovered, but her father was hospitalized. He died in October of last year.

His death turned Elizabeth's world upside down. In the weeks that followed, she found herself not wanting to leave her house. "I didn't want to go to school," she says. "I just wanted to stay at home."

When she did return to school at Atlantic Community High in Palm Beach County, Florida, she says, it felt "weird" and "surreal." "Because a few weeks ago, my father passed away and here I am, back to normal, at school. Like, what? How even?"

Like so many kids in her circumstances, Elizabeth felt as if no one at school understood what she was going through. Always a top-notch student, she now struggled to focus at school.

And one day, she found herself feeling alone and isolated in the middle of a crisis. She headed to see the school counselor, but was so flustered that she ended up in the wrong room, breaking down into tears.

Losing a parent in childhood is the kind of trauma that can change the trajectory of kids' lives, putting them at risk of having symptoms of anxiety, depression, post traumatic stress and even poor educational outcomes.

Yet few schools have resources