Laura Wheat is an assistant professor and Coordinator for the Grief Outreach Initiative (GOI) in the Department of Educational Psychology and Counseling. She worked as a school-based counselor in York, South Carolina before moving to Charlottesville for her doctoral studies in Counselor Education & Supervision at the University of Virginia. Laura focuses on loss and life transitions, particularly as they impact children and adolescents.
She is beginning outcome research to investigate the effectiveness of GOI activities with preschool-12th grade students. She is also in the midst of designing the GOI’s first grief camp, to be held in summer 2016. Laura is a member of the Board of Directors of the Association for Death Education & Counseling (ADEC). The Board is the governing body of this multidisciplinary, multinational organization devoted to the study of death, dying, and bereavement and the practice of helping those who are dying and those who mourn.