Healthy Communities Coalition of Lyon and Storey Counties to meet Thursday

The featured speaker for Thursday’s Healthy Communities Coalition of Lyon and Storey Counties’ meeting will be Emilio Parga, a pediatric thanatologist and founder and executive director of Solace Tree. He’ll speak about creating “grief-friendly schools” that are equipped to be supportive of children and teens who are dealing with loss.

Parga is the cofounder of four grief centers in Nevada and one in New York. He specializes in explaining death to young children and serves as a bereavement consultant to local schools, social services, hospitals, funeral homes, and businesses.

The meeting, open to the public, will be at 9 a.m. at Silver Springs Community Center.

Parga teaches at the University of Nevada, Reno, offering courses such as “Death and Dying — A Life Span Perspective” and “How to Help Children and Teens Cope with Death and Loss.”

He’s conducted grief workshops, presentations, and in-service trainings for the American Counseling Association, Cancer Treatment Centers of American, and the National Association of Elementary School Principals.

He is a member of the National Association for the Education of Young Children, American Academy of Pediatrics, The National Alliance for Grieving Children, and the American Professional Society of the Abuse of Children.

He is the author of No Child Should Grieve Alone, and several other journals written with children for children.

For information about Healthy Communities, go to healthycomm.org. For information about Solace Tree, go to http://www.solacetree.org/.