About Calm Waters

A safe harbor for grieving families since 1992

Calm Waters Center for Children and Families is a nonprofit, non-faith-based organization helping children, teens, adults and families in their grief journey after a death, divorce or other significant loss.

Our mission

To help children and families in their grief journey caused by death, divorce or other significant loss.

Our vision

To be the leading provider of grief support services for children and families throughout Oklahoma — a safe place for anyone who has experienced a loss to receive grief resources, peer support and hope for the future.

How we help

We offer free support groups at our center and in schools, private counseling and consultation, parenting seminars, professional trainings and workplace crisis services. Our research-based curriculum gives people a safe place to share their experiences and work through feelings like sadness, loneliness and anger.

Explore our services

A mother and her young son smiling together outdoors

Our story

When Jason was nine, his father died suddenly. “One of my favorite memories is of my time sailing with my dad. Whenever the weather got rough, we would go into a cove to take shelter. It was in those calm waters that I felt most safe.”

In the stormy, emotional times after his father's death, Jason longed for the safety and peace of those calm waters again. His mother, Sondra, searched for grief support for her son and found Charlotte Lankard, LMFT, who saw there were no such grief services for kids in Oklahoma. It is for Jason, and every child who has endured loss, that Calm Waters was founded.

1992
Calm Waters begins at INTEGRIS Baptist Medical Center under the leadership of Charlotte Lankard, LMFT, Jason Woodruff and Sondra Woodruff.
1994
Support groups for families going through divorce are added.
1997
“Parenting Through Divorce” seminars begin, meeting Oklahoma's court requirement for divorcing parents of minor children.
1999
Free school-based grief support groups are added.
2020
The private counseling clinic opens, extending Calm Waters' support to individual and family counseling.