Advanced Grief Counseling Specialist (CAGCS) Certification: Interventions to Support Clients through Death and Non-Death Losses, Traumatic Grief, and More
When grief enters the room, clients' needs can range from gentle guidance through a natural process…
…to helping them navigate traumatic, prolonged, or complicated grief that upends identity, relationships, safety, spiritual beliefs, and meaning itself.
So you need to be ready to do more than basic grief work.
That's why we created this all-new certification course with experts Dr. Christina Zampitella, Claire Bidwell Smith, Dr. Erica Sirrine, Megan Devine, PLUS the legendary Dr. Janina Fisher, and other leaders in grief care.
Together they'll show you how to skillfully work with any type of grief from death and non-death losses to traumatic grief, complicated grief, and the difficult emotional, relational, somatic, and attachment disruptions that come with them.
You'll get a complete evidence-based toolbox full of CBT, Narrative therapy, DBT, mindfulness, EMDR, somatic and experiential interventions that will have you ready to:
- Guide clients through shifts in roles, worldview, faith, and life direction
- Confidently treat grief intertwined with trauma, anxiety, or attachment injury
- Work somatically with grief held in the body to process loss reflected in physical symptoms
- Help clients make meaning after loss without premature closure
- Support clients navigating estrangement grief or grief shaped by culture, race, and historical loss
- Work with the changing landscape of grief, including AI chatbots
- Earn up to 20.0 CE Hours
- Instant access to videos and materials
- All certification fees included, FREE!
- FREE marketing pack
- 5 FREE BONUS trainings
GET STARTED
NOW!
PLUS we're covering the cost of CAGCS certification for two years, giving you a FREE listing in the official directory of Certified Advanced Grief Counseling Specialists…
…and giving you a FREE Marketing Pack with a digital badge that can help you attract clients.
Become the grief care provider who can say "I'm trained for this. I'm certified for this. I can help."
Register now.
Advanced Grief Counseling Specialist (CAGCS) Certification
Click here for Credit details | Click here for course objectives and outline
"This course exceeded my expectations and increased my competency."
"I found myself alternately touched, crying (given the intense topic), and laughing (a healthy need with this presentation). I strongly recommend this."
"I absolutely LOVED this training!"
"Excellent… I feel much more prepared to assist people who are navigating grief and loss."
"Blew me away. It was incredibly informative and eye-opening."
Foundations of Grief Assessment and
Intervention
From Acute Loss to Meaningful Healing Across the Grief Spectrum
- Grief intensity scale
- Hogan grief reaction checklist
- Assessment to uncover trauma, depression, substance use and anxiety
- QPR and S-SSRS to assess for suicidal ideation or substance use
- Isolation, sleep, and nutrition concerns for grieving clients
- How to diagnose using the DSM-5
- Assessment resources
- Complicated Grief Treatment Model
- Meaning Reconstruction
- Grief counseling vs. grief treatment — what's the difference?
- CBT techniques for guilt, blame and other maladaptive cognitions following loss
- Mindfulness interventions for anticipatory grief and anxiety symptoms
- Narrative approaches to process grief by putting words to the pain
- Exercises to help clients better face uncertainty
- Creative tools to support emotional regulation and expression
- Tools to manage regret and facilitate forgiveness and reconciliation
- Alternative ways to honor deceased loved ones and find closure
- How to make virtual sessions as effective as in-person ones
- Abstract losses — how to work with loss of connection, routine, normalcy and identity
- Divorce
- Substance use
- Natural disasters
- Life-limiting illness, mental illness and developmental disabilities
- Military or incarceration
- Symbolic Losses
Advanced Grief Treatment, Group Work and
Ethical Practice
Trauma-Informed, Culturally Responsive, and Clinically Sound
Care
- Assess for PTSD symptoms
- Emotional regulation techniques for clients who've had a traumatic loss
- DBT techniques to decrease avoidance and manage suicidal ideation
- CBT coping skills for traumatic memories and rumination
- Clinical strategies to reduce fear responses
- How to work with the unique challenges of suicide survivors
- Exercises to help clients overcome guilt and shame
- Employing a strengths-based approach to build resiliency
- Types of groups
- Participant screening
- Keys to effective facilitation
- Program evaluation
- How culture impacts mourning and continuing relationships with the deceased
- Spiritual impacts on grief
- How inequalities in race, gender, sexual orientation, and age impact support of grief and loss
- Cultural competence vs. culturally and difference intentioned/aware practice
Treating Anxious Grief
When
Anxiety Complicates the Grieving Process
- When is anxiety grief-related?
- The five stages of grief plus the missing one: anxiety
- How long does anxious grief last?
- Assessment and identification of anxious grief
- Recognizing masked anxiety symptoms
- Strategies to normalize anxiety and panic
- Helping clients get out from underneath their anxious grief:
- Understanding the fallacy of worry
- Making amends to release guilt-driven anxiety
- The gift (and power) of writing
- Mindfulness for retraining the anxious brain
- Meaning-making and connection
Advanced Grief Counseling Specialist (CAGCS) Certification
Click here for Credit details | Click here for course objectives and outline
With Your FREE Marketing Pack
When you complete this training, you don't just gain dozens of powerful tools to help your work with grieving clients…
…you walk away with all the educational requirments to apply for certification as well as a ready-to-use marketing pack designed to help you attract the clients who need you most.
You'll receive a digital badge you can share on your website, directories, social media, and email signature that signals your specialized training.
PLUS you'll get a FREE listing in the official directory of Certified Advanced Grief Counseling Specialists so clients can find you.
*Professional and clinical experience standards apply
Michael Jones, Ph.D. and Megan Devine, LPC
From grief bots and voice cloning to digital avatars, emerging technologies are reshaping how people maintain bonds with deceased loved ones. Join Michael Jones, PhD, LPC-S, NCC, BC-TMH, for an essential session featuring a special conversation with grief expert Megan Devine, LPC.
You'll learn to:- Understand how clients use AI-mediated grief tools and their impact on healthy grieving
- Apply ethical frameworks and continuing bonds theory to guide clinical conversations
- Assess benefits, risks, and red flags while maintaining professional boundaries
Dr. Janina Fisher
Drawing on decades of pioneering work in somatic and mindfulness-based interventions, internationally renowned trauma expert Janina Fisher, PhD, will guide you through strategies that transform pain into a process of hope and resilience. You'll discover how to help clients befriend the emotional and physical impact of grief, creating space for healing and relief.
You'll learn to:- Identify the clinical barriers that keep clients stuck in prolonged grief and emotional pain
- Apply mindfulness-based techniques that slow down grief's intensity and foster emotional regulation
- Integrate somatic interventions that release pain and help clients experience grief as waves that rise and settle, bringing relief and healing
Claire Bidwell-Smith, LCPC
Join renowned therapist, best-selling author, and leading voice in grief work, Claire Bidwell-Smith, as she offers deep insight into the emotional and identity-level impacts of estrangement and shares practical, compassionate strategies clinicians can immediately apply.
You'll learn to:- Identify estrangement as ambiguous and disenfranchised grief and its clinical implications
- Use narrative interventions to foster meaning-making and self-trust without self-blame
- Apply grounding and mindfulness techniques to reduce anxiety and emotional flooding
Kathy Couch, LCSW, FT
Standard grief interventions can stall when faced with Complicated Grief (CG) because they can't reach the underlying unprocessed traumatic memories and attachment wounds that perpetuate prolonged suffering. That's where EMDR shines! Join Kathy Couch and learn to integrate EMDR protocols for Complicated Grief into your practice to shift from surface-level support to deep memory resolution in complicated grief cases.
You'll learn to:- Use grief-specific adaptations to the core EMDR protocol
- Target selection strategies for loss-related memories
- Maintain client stability during processing
- Combine EMDR with other grief interventions
Dr. Erica Sirrine
Join the director of social work at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital to gain insight into how children and adolescents maintain and express these bonds. Assessment and intervention strategies that promote adaptive bonds and healthy ongoing connections will also be explored.
You'll learn to:- Identify commonly expressed continuing bonds and consider the factors that make those expressions unique
- Consider how family differences in continuing bonds impact grieving children and adolescents
- Use assessment and intervention strategies that support the establishment of healthy continuing bonds
Advanced Grief Counseling Specialist (CAGCS) Certification
Click here for Credit details | Click here for course objectives and outline
Click here for information about Christina Zampitella
Click here for information about Claire Bidwell Smith
Click here for information about Janina Fisher
Click here for information about Megan Devine
Click here for information about Michael Jones
Click here for information about Kathy Couch
Click here for information about Erica H Sirrine
This certification program equips you with immediately usable tools to confidently support clients navigating death, non-death losses, and traumatic grief. You'll move beyond theory to practical interventions you can apply in sessions right away — helping clients stabilize, process loss, and rebuild meaning while protecting your own emotional resilience.
You'll be able to:- Intervene skillfully in even complex grief cases
- Tailor support to each client's lived experience
- Increase your professional confidence and credibility
When do I get access to the training?
You get instant access as soon as you register.
Do I get CE hours?
This training offers 18.5 CE hours for eligible professionals. Click here for Credit details. After you complete the course and the post-training evaluation, you'll receive your CE certificate.
How do I get certified?
In just three easy steps, you can become a Certified Advanced Grief Counseling Specialist (CAGCS) starting today:
Step1: Watch the online course.
Step2: Complete the CE tests and instantly print your CE certificates.
Step3: Submit the Certification Questionnaire included in this training, and your
application is complete.*
That's it! No hidden fees. No catch. Just certification made EASY.
Professional and clinical experience standards apply. Learn more at www.evergreencertifications.com/CAGCS
How long will I have access to this course?
This course comes with Unlimited Access. You can pause, replay, and review the material whenever it works best for your schedule. During your access period, you can revisit the content as often as you like!
Advanced Grief Counseling Specialist (CAGCS) Certification
Click here for Credit details | Click here for course objectives and outline
We’re that confident you'll find this learning experience to be all that's promised and more than you expected.
