The CHAMPS team in South Africa has published a new case study on the importance and impact that grief counseling has on grieving mothers and their families. Grief counseling is rapidly becoming necessary, particularly for studies investigating death, grief and mourning, and mental health issues. The Child Health and Mortality Prevention Surveillance (CHAMPS) program aims to determine causes of death in children under five years of age.

The CHAMPS site in Soweto, South Africa, has provided grief counseling for bereaved mothers and their families since 2015, from the first contact when the bereaved mother consents to the Minimally Invasive Tissue Sampling (MITS) to when she collects the MITS results. This paper highlights the importance of grief counseling to bereaved parents/guardians in the CHAMPS program at the Soweto site.