There’s always been grief counseling- but it was given by friends, family and clergy- and no one called it anything. It sounds like another pre-packaged attempt at dealing with life’s sorrows and inconsistencies and unfairness.
The first time I heard it called grief counseling was after Columbine.
I agree completely but I'd like to draw a distinction between what was previously informal, personal grief counseling and the impersonal, formalized variety that goes on today.
At least as late as the mid-1960's, when a good friend of mine was killed in high school, there wasn't any flock of professional 'grief counselors' that descended on our school. Each of us talked individually to our families, our ministers/priests/rabbis, or one of our teachers to work our own way through our loss. While there's probably no 'perfect' way to deal with any particular situation, it seemed to work well at the time.