The Latest
Grief Support Guidance for Schools
Published on March 14, 2009
A teacher in a Primary, Junior or Secondary School is all but certain to encounter during their career students who have been deeply affected by bereavement. 3% of 5- to 15-year-olds have experienced the death of a parent or sibling and many others have lost grandparents. It is suggested that 92% of children in the UK will experience bereavement before the age of 16, through the loss of a person or pet. The universality of bereavement is clear. Young people look to peers and teachers in their schools to help define the reality of their losses, provide support and help integrate the experience into their lives. The teacher and the school itself have a potentially major role to play in supporting the child.
Close bereavements bring profound effects and changes to a child’s life. Young children can suffer very deeply. One way of understanding it is that first the child will have to face this loss and accept its reality, experience the pain, adjust to the environment from which the deceased is missing and finally relocate this person within their lives and find ways to memorialise them. There is no fixed pattern to how a child will grieve and how this will show itself in school.
Close bereavements bring profound effects and changes to a young person’s life. One way of understanding it is that first the young person will have to face this loss and accept its reality, experience the pain, adjust to the environment from which the deceased is missing and finally relocate this person within their lives and find ways to memorialise them. These tasks of mourning are not necessarily sequential and may take years. The bonds with a loved one continue over time, and a young person can be deeply affected for years.
The two documents below can be downloaded for free!
Download Guidance for Infant and Junior Schools
