The Kristin Rita Strouse Foundation was established by Douglas and Sharon Strouse in response to the death of their daughter Kristin, on October 11, 2001.Kristin was a freshman at Parsons School of Design in New York City when she ended her own life.
The Kristin Rita Strouse Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting local and national programs that increase mental health awareness, strengthen suicide prevention efforts, and offer support and healing through the arts to those affected by suicide and mental illness.
The Kristin Rita Strouse Foundation is dedicated to supporting local and national programs that:
Our work is guided by the vision that individuals and families struggling with mental health problems and the risk of suicide will receive the love, care, and treatment they need and deserve to regain their health and go on to enjoy full and prosperous lives.
The Kristin Rita Strouse Foundation is proud to have contributed a grand total of $1,800,000 to the programs listed below.These funds consist of money raised at the Yellow Dress Guest Speaker and Golf Classic, since 2002. This figure includes $125,000.00 donated by Douglas and Sharon Strouse.
The Adolescent Depression Awareness Program seeks to educate high school students, teachers, and parents about adolescent depression. ADAP offers a student curriculum, an instructor training, and parent and community presentations. Through education, ADAP increases awareness about depression and bipolar disorder, stressing the need for evaluation and treatment, while decreasing the stigma associated with mood disorders. ADAP has reached over 120,000 students in schools across the country.
The Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS) offers compassionate care to all those grieving the death of a loved one serving in our Armed Forces. Since 1994, TAPS has provided free, 24/7 comfort and hope to surviving families and loved ones through a national network of peer support and grief resources. KRSF will once again be a proud sponsor of the 2020 TAPS National Military Suicide Survivor Seminar. In addition, Sharon Strouse has presented and facilitated the Artful Grief:Open Art Studio at the TAPS National Military Survivor Seminar and the TAPS National Military Suicide Survivor Seminar since 2009.
Robert A. Neimeyer, Ph.D.
The Kristin Rita Strouse Foundation: Artful Grief:Open Art Studio is proud to support the Portland Institute for Loss and Transition as well as participate in the interdisciplinary training for health and mental health professionals, highlighted in Art-Assisted Grief Therapy.
The Portland Institute for Loss and Transition (PI) offers international, interdisciplinary training for health and mental health professionals who support people struggling with profound and unwelcome changes associated with bereavement and other forms of life-altering loss. We recognize that the death of a significant person, relationship or role often ushers in more than difficult symptoms of sadness and uncertainty, and sometimes calls for skilled assistance in meeting the challenges to identity and relationships that loss introduces. PI therefore helps build the capacity of therapists, counselors, social workers, life coaches, chaplains and others who work alongside people striving to reconstruct their lives. PI offers high-level professional continuing education in grief therapy drawing on contemporary theory and research, experiential learning principles, one-on-one mentoring, and small group practicum to extend the practitioner's toolkit of creative clinical practices.
At the heart of grief is the attempt to reaffirm or rebuild a world of meaning that has been challenged by loss. Especially when the death is traumatic or premature, or when the relationship with the deceased was complicated or conflicted, the bereaved often need more than simple support and a listening ear.
Looking at loss through a wide-angle lens, we also recognize that life confronts us with many unwelcome transitions, whether in the form of lost relationships, careers, health, possibilities, identity, security or even precious possessions. Though these non-death losses are often ambiguous or invisible, they too can shake our taken-for-granted assumptions that life is predictable, the world is just, and people are reliable.
Drawing on a large and growing body of bereavement research and clinical scholarship, a Meaning Reconstruction approach to grief therapy gives you the tools to work alongside clients struggling with intense and prolonged grief, as you learn to listen between the lines of the stories, they tell themselves and others about the loss, and find the seeds of new beginnings.
The Kristin Rita Strouse Endowed Memorial Scholarship Fund was established to foster the development of future artists at Notre Dame Preparatory in Baltimore, Maryland. The Kristin Rita Strouse Creative Excellence Award is given annually to an eleventh grade student in support of advanced training at a Pre-College Summer Program. Selection is based on talent, the submission essay, and financial need. Past recipients: Jennifer Guido, 2002; Nichole Drummond, 2003; Lindsay Marsh, 2004; Tessa Burke, 2005; Sarah Miller, 2006; Kathryn Regan, 2007; Alexis Sanders, 2008; Lucia Mangione, 2009; Genevieve O’Keefe, 2010; Megan Hill, 2011; Kristin Hunter, 2012; Margaret Herr, 2013; Natasha Svymkiewicz, 2014; and Meredith Egan, 2015, Mary Tado 2017, Anna Nguyen 2017 and Maggie Franz 2018.
For the past thirty years, the Johns Hopkins Medicine Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences has hosted the Annual Mood Disorders Research/Education Symposium for continuing medical education on the diagnosis and treatment of mood disorders.
The Association for Death Education and Counseling® is an international, professional organization dedicated to promoting excellence and recognizing diversity in death education, care of the dying, grief counseling and research in thanatology. Based on quality research, theory and practice, the association provides information, support and resources to its international, multicultural, multidisciplinary membership and to the public.
The Association for Death Education and Counseling® envisions a world in which dying, death, and bereavement are recognized as fundamental and significant aspects of the human experience. Therefore, the Association, ever committed to being on the forefront of thanatology (the study of death and dying), will provide a home for professionals from diverse backgrounds to advance the body of knowledge and to promote practical applications of research and theory.
The Kristin Rita Strouse Foundation was a proud sponsor of the Artful Grief:Open Art Studio, 2018 and 2019, advancing the presence of Art Therapy within the field of grief and bereavement.
Kimberly Strouse founded and directed non-profit arts organization, Rita Project. The organization engaged diverse audiences in permanent and site-specific Open Studios in New York, Los Angeles, Baltimore. Ms. Strouse has an MFA in Film/Video from Cal Arts and a BFA in Drama from New York University, Tisch School of the Arts.
When a child dies, at any age, the family suffers intense pain and may feel hopeless and isolated. The Compassionate Friends provides highly personal comfort, hope, and support to every family experiencing the death of a son or a daughter, a brother or a sister, or a grandchild, and helps others better assist the grieving family. Sharon Strouse has been a presenter at The Compassionate Friends local, regional and national conferences since 2003. KRSF was also a proud sponsor of The Compassionate Friends 2015 National Conference “Creative Cafe: Artful Grief Open Art Studio.”
Since 2003, the Kristin Rita Strouse Foundation has supported the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention in a variety of ways. The Foundation provides ongoing support for AFSP’s Out of the Darkness Walks and the educational program “The Truth About Suicide: Real Stories of Depression in College.”
The New Day Campaign (NDC) is an initiative using art to challenge stigma and discrimination associated with mental illness and addiction, making the world a more healing place. In 2015, over 92 days, the New Day Campaign presented 16 art exhibitions and 62 public events in the Baltimore region. The Kristin Rita Strouse Foundation was a proud sponsor of the 2015 New Day Campaign exhibition Touched with Fire: Kristin & Elisif at McDonogh School’s Tuttle Gallery. The exhibition featured works by Kristin Rita Strouse and Elisif Bruun, two artists who died young and whose journeys through creativity both illuminated and obscured their passages through mental illness and addiction.The Kristin Rita Strouse Foundation is a part of the New Day Campaign, Founders Circle and supported the 2016–2017 “Coffee House Series:” Addiction Now, Turbulent Waters, Just Breathe and Candle Light. KRSF is proud to support: The Kent County Arts Council: Exhibition: Heroin & Healing: How the Opioid Epidemic and Hurting Go Together: March 2 – March 31, 2018 at the Vincent & Leslie Prince Raimond Arts Buildingand Beyond Beautiful:One Thousand Love Letters:January 17 – March 10, 2019.
The Kristin Rita Strouse Foundation provided funding for the development of a core-curriculum program on depression that was taught to students and faculty in the college setting. Johns Hopkins University, Maryland Institute College of Art, University of Maryland Baltimore County and Westchester Community College, New York, participated in the planning of a menu of effective interventions that could be offered to increase knowledge, awareness, and treatment of depression.
The Kristin Rita Strouse Foundation was a proud sponsor of the book Most Commonly Asked Questions About Teenage Depression & Bipolar Illness by Sallie Mink, R.N., the 2004 lecture series “The Lifespan of Women: Childhood to Pregnancy.”
The Kristin Rita Strouse Foundation was a proud sponsor of the 2006 Notre Dame Preparatory School lecture by Dr. Lisa Machoian, author of The Disappearing Girl: Learning the Language of Teenage Depression. From 2002-2005, the Kristin Rita Strouse Foundation funded professional development awards for the following individuals: Ann Walker: Art Professor, Notre Dame Preparatory: 2002; Father Ray Chase: Illuminations: 2003; and Kirsten D’Andrea Hollander: Visual Arts and the Spiritual: 2005.
In 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, the Kristin Rita Strouse Foundation funded educational scholarships for Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST) workshops sponsored by Pastoral Counseling Services of Maryland. ASIST is the world’s leading suicide intervention workshop in which participants learn to intervene and help prevent the immediate risk of suicide over two days of training
