Volunteers are the heart and soul of our organization.  

The majority of our volunteers are facilitators in our peer support groups.

Kyle -

“When kids talk about their experience with grief, I can relate to it and I can see how far I have come in my own grief journey.”  

All volunteers give generously of their time and skills to make an important difference in the life of a child or youth coping with the loss of a family member. Our volunteers tell us they receive as much as they give from volunteering. They are teachers, social workers, business professionals, and retirees. Most, but not all, of our volunteers have experienced grief as children or adults. They all are caring individuals who understand the importance of providing support to grieving children, youth and their families.

All prospective volunteer facilitators attend a 30-hour training program before being placed in a group. The training is extensive to prepare each facilitator for their work with grieving children and youth, and to ensure that there is a good alignment of interests and commitment. We want to create a safe environment for our participants in which they can build trust and are at ease. For this reason, we try to avoid a frequent change of facilitators if at all possible and ask our volunteer facilitators to make a 1-year commitment to our program that consists of working with staff to facilitate a support group in our Program. Groups meet every other week throughout the school calendar year. The time commitment as a facilitator is 3 hours every other week.

If you are such a person and would like to find out more about volunteering at The Lighthouse Program in some capacity, please call us at 905-337-2333 or email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it