Bereavement support: Teachers to be given training in pilot scheme

Teachers from almost 100 schools in Northern Ireland are to receive bereavement support training to help pupils cope with losing a loved one.

The pilot initiative is being led by the charities Marie Curie and Cruse Bereavement Support.

They are aiming to tackle the impact suffering a loss can have on the mental wellbeing of children.

Marie Curie said that current support across Northern Ireland is patchy, with demand far outstripping supply.

Through the scheme, bereavement counsellors will provide training for almost 120 teachers at six separate training days.

Sessions include looking at the effects of grief on young people, how children grieve, difficult questions and appropriate language, and practical tools.

Speaking on BBC News NI's Good Morning Ulster programme, Joan McEwan, from Marie Curie Northern Ireland, said there is "constant demand for bereavement support for both pupils and teachers".

"The course covers a wide variety of issues but really, at its core, it's helping teaching staff understand the different ages and stages of bereavement grief and how children and young people react," Ms McEwan said.

"It also covers difficult questions, as we know many children have no experience until their first experience but they have a lot of difficult questions around what happens to people when they die and where do they go.

"But, also really importantly, it covers the issue of anticipatory grief, which is about the loss and grief a person can feel before that loved one dies and gives them time to prepare."

Ms McEwan said school can often be a "second home to children", so by offering additional support to teaching staff, there will be more support for young people in a school environment.

When asked what advice she had for people dealing with a bereaved child, Ms McEwan said it's important to simply "speak to them".

"The taboo around death, dying and bereavement is a huge barrier to people getting the support they need," she said.

"Just opening up that conversation to say 'I'm sorry to hear about your loved one' can just be extending that arm of support.

"Especially to a young person or child who finds it so difficult opening up to people."

Ruth Graham, bereavement support volunteer with Cruse Bereavement Support, helped host one of the training sessions with school staff at Belfast Boys' Model School on Monday.

She told BBC News NI that statistics surrounding bereavement show that in every classroom, there will be at least one child who has been bereaved of a parent or a significant adult in their life.

"On one hand that seems like quite a lot, but in the other hand it is very isolating," Ms Graham said.

"If you're the one person and everybody else hasn't lost a parent then that is very isolating and often the response to that can be very extreme.

"I think the teachers just want to know how do they help with that, how do they support a young person so that they manage their grief and they can continue to become resilient and survive, to get through the school programme."

Ms Graham added that the key thing teachers and other adults can do for a grieving child is to address their loss, ask how they are feeling and signpost them to help if required.

Speaking on the same BBC programme, Judith McCracken, vice-principal at Belfast Boys' Model School, said there are a huge number of pupils who have been bereaved, but they are all impacted differently.

"It is up to staff to navigate around that and to offer support the young people need, so they can get on with their school work and overcome challenges that come with being bereaved," she said.

"We find that school, especially in post-primary education, teenagers are coming to us and we're seeing a lot more of them than even their families are.

"So we have this unique opportunity in schools to offer support when it's needed."

Ms McCracken said that while Belfast Boys' Model has a "wealth of counsellors available", she has noticed an increase in demand particularly after Covid.

"I know that with the demand of post-Covid life for teenagers, we're having to look for alternatives and extra provision for these pupils and that's why we turned to Cruse Bereavement and asked for their expertise.

"We need to keep upskilling ourselves, our staff need to feel they are able to deal with these issues, especially in a huge school like ours with 1,100 pupils and 160 staff.

"You don't know who the pupil is going to turn to or feel closest to, so you need to ensure that all staff a pupil may come into contact with, that they don't feel the embarrassment of dealing with the after effects of bereavement, that they can offer condolences, help the pupil and signpost where necessary."

The bereavement support sessions are being held in Belfast, Omagh, Antrim, Bangor, Newcastle and Armagh between Monday, 22 August and Wednesday, 24 August.

Marie Curie has said it is the first step in the phased initiative that, if endorsed, could develop and embed greater support for children impacted by grief into the curriculum for all Northern Ireland secondary schools.