Many teachers have told us they wish they had been better prepared when they experience a death in the school community. To support schools we have developed a free Bereavement Resource which you can find in our Resources page (LINK).
Young people can find it very difficult to ask for help after a bereavement, so knowing what help is available and how to enable children and students to get appropriate help is important for schools.
It is not always the loss of a loved one through death that bereavement occurs. Divorce, separation and moving away to a new location can also cause feelings of grief and loss.
It is important for young people to be informed about bereavement. Schools can help prepare pupils for their own future experiences of loss, good education can help dispel myths and taboos, and help children to know how to support their peers.
Grief is a very personal experience, every child and young person will experience it in a different way. Frustration, anger and instability are widespread reactions, and this can lead to changes in behaviour in class. Teachers and educators can be far more comfortable knowing how to support a pupil experiencing grief, and can manage challenging behaviour more productively.
In her paper Child Bereavement: What School Psychologists Need To Know. Huda Ayyash-Abdo explains that silencing the subject of death at home and at school, leads to children experiencing “pain, isolation, distress and at times dysfunctional manifestations of grief”. Left to their own devices, unhealthy grieving in children and young people has a detrimental effect on them. School psychologists may not have the time to provide the ongoing support to every bereaved student and their family, sometimes additional support is needed.
Integrating death and bereavement education into the curriculum can help children to develop a realistic and healthy attitude towards death and loss, be more sensitive to the grief of others and develop more effective coping strategies of their own. Education around death and loss is a better preventative measure for future problems.
Teachers and educators may need to understand their own grief and loss, and feel better prepared to support their colleagues too. The pandemic has caused a much greater need in schools to be more aware of grief, loss and bereavement not only in the pupils but also for staff. In response to this we have developed a
free Bereavement Resource
which you can find in our
Resources page.
This resource has been developed in collaboration with Rainbows Bereavement Support GB, Grief Encounter and World Wide Motion Pictures Corporation. This resource will also give you some more awareness into the different cultural rituals and rites around bereavement.
Rainbows Bereavement Support Great Britain, is a well respected national charity having a proven, positive impact on the lives of children, young people and adults. Their vision is quite simply for every child and young person in every school in Great Britain, grieving a significant and often devastating loss in their lives, to be understood and supported appropriately.
Grief Encounter is a charity set up to help with the confusion, fear, loneliness and pain, providing a lifeline to children and young people to cope with free, immediate, one-to-one
support. They work closely with schools nationwide to ensure all students have someone to turn to following bereavement.
World Wide Motion Pictures Corporation worked with us to organise a screening of their film Emu Runner to help raise awareness of the different ways that a child can manage their grieving. It tells the story of an 8-year-old indigenous Australian girl dealing with her mother’s death by forging a bond with a wild emu and helping her deal with her grief. We hope this heart warming family film will not only educate but motivate you to learn more about issues around bereavement and the cultural differences that can add further challenges.
We hope you
enjoy the film and find our resource useful.
