About Us
Who We Are
Heartlinks is a place of hope. Heartlinks is a place where you can find professional counseling, support groups and community programs, and information on managing change, loss and grief. Heartlinks is a place of safety. You can learn to manage grief over time, and over the passage of life. Heartlinks is a home. You can find support and companionship at a time when you feel as if the lives of everyone around you go on, while your life has stopped. Heartlinks is a place to realize you are not alone – where you can progress from grief to growth.
Heartlinks provides a variety of services to children, adults, and families who are trying to manage the serious illness or death of someone they love. Heartlinks is the only provider of ongoing grief support services for children and teens in our community. Providing services to six counties in Southwestern Illinois, Heartlinks serves over 1500 people annually.
At Heartlinks, we speak hope. Whatever your age, dealing with a loss can leave you feeling lost and hopeless. At Heartlinks, you can connect with others who understand and counselors who can help you find ways to cope and ways to grow your hope.
Heartlinks is a Grief Center located in the St. Louis Metro-East, right across the Mississippi River from the Arch. We are located at 5110 West Main in Belleville, Illinois. Heartlinks provides a variety of services to children, adults, and families who are trying to manage the serious illness or death of someone they love. Heartlinks is the only provider of ongoing grief support services for children and teens in our community. Providing services to six counties in Southwestern Illinois, Heartlinks serves over 1500 people annually.
What We Do
Heartlinks Grief Center is a community of people coming together to get through difficult times.
Sharing the story
While in our groups, everyone who wants to gets a chance to not only share the story of their loss in their own words, but they also get to hear other stories as well. They often discover that what they think and feel is normal, and in supporting one another they quickly learn that they are not alone.
Predicting the path
No two grief journeys are the same, but there are similarities in grief that allow us to predict what might be coming next. For many of us, we do not know much about grief and loss, thus our groups spend some time regularly discussing not only what has happened, but also preparing for the future.
Honoring the Memories
There is a saying that goes “When a loved one becomes a memory, that memory becomes a treasure.” Heartlinks provides opportunities for group members to remember their loved ones through a variety of activities and we encourage you to maintain your connection to your loved one while you move forward with your life.
Living in the real world
Grief never goes away, we recognize that adults and kids will have tough days outside of the Heartlinks Grief Center. We work to give Heartlinks’ members the tools they need to help make those days more manageable. We discuss and practice healthy coping skills, including ways to stay connected to loved ones through the years.
Having fun while we do it
At Heartlinks, we speak kid. This means that when it comes to sharing, predicting, honoring, and living, we do it all with the knowledge that kids are most comfortable with playing, moving, and creating. Heartlinks allows kids to get back to being kids again and have fun! Grieving families have a chance to be with others who ‘get it’ and go on social outings. We do not leave adults out of the fun. It’s common for our grown-up groups to find themselves laughing as much or more than they cry. Laughter and fun are natural and they help ease the sadness of loss.