The UK Trauma Council (UKTC) and three childhood bereavement charities, including Winston’s Wish, appeal for more awareness of traumatic bereavement, particularly in the context of the coronavirus pandemic. They have also collaborated to create a new, free portfolio of evidence-based resources on traumatic bereavement to support those working with bereaved children and young people.
There have been more than 130,000 deaths in the UK due to the coronavirus pandemic, with a large number of children and young people being affected through the death of a family member or someone else important in their life. The pandemic has created situations in which a death comes unexpectedly, without the chance to say goodbye, or where family members feel guilt that they may have brought the virus into the home. These factors may increase the likelihood of a traumatic bereavement.
In a traumatic bereavement, the trauma gets in the way of the typical process of grieving. It blocks the child or young person’s ability to ‘make sense’ of the death and adjust to their loss. As a result, how the child or young person experiences or understands the death – the meaning they make of it – results in it being experienced as traumatic. This can happen to children and young people in any circumstance and at any age.
David Trickey, Co-Director of the UKTC, explains:
Traumatically bereaved children and young people experience significant distress and difficulties, over and above a more typical grief. Traumatic bereavement may be easily missed or misunderstood, meaning that children’s difficulties are not recognised by even the most supportive adults including parents, teachers and bereavement practitioners. It is vital that these children are identified and given the appropriate help and support.
The UKTC, hosted and supported by the Anna Freud Centre, has collaborated with leading bereavement charities, Winston’s Wish, Child Bereavement UK, and the Childhood Bereavement Network, to create a new portfolio of resources on traumatic bereavement.
These free, evidence-based resources are for school staff, bereavement services and NHS mental health services. They will give schools and clinical staff the knowledge to recognise traumatic bereavement, advice on how to put appropriate support in place, and guidance on how to refer on to more specialist services.
This new initiative has been prompted by the pandemic, which has had a profound impact on children and young people’s mental health. In England, the proportion of children and young people with a probably mental health disorder rose to one in six in July 2020 (1) (from one in nine in 2017).
David Trickey explains:
As our new resources show, young people often grieve in puddles, dipping in and out of their grief. But if the grief becomes traumatic, it is more like a deep well, and much harder for the young person to step out of. These resources should help identify traumatic bereavement, provide effective support, and allow trusted adults to hold the hope for the child or young person.
As awareness increases of the impact of the pandemic, the UKTC welcomes the efforts to address children and young people’s experiences of trauma within the UK Government’s mental health recovery plans (2). Building on these measures, the UKTC encourages the UK Government, and those of the four nations, to support schools, NHS mental health services and bereavement services to use evidence-based approaches to address the impacts of traumatic bereavement during the pandemic on children and young people’s mental health and lives.
Professor Eamon McCory, Co-Director of the UKTC, says:
Working together, we can begin to address the impact of the current pandemic on the wellbeing of children and young people. The easing of lockdown and return of schools creates more of a sense of normality for children, but some will have been intensely affected by what they have been through. An immediate priority is to ensure parents, teachers and professionals have the support and guidance they need to help those children who have experienced a traumatic bereavement.
The new traumatic bereavement resources are available on the UK Trauma Council website and include:
- Resources for schools and colleges: featuring a comprehensive written guide with supporting tools including videos, plus a four-minute animation.
- Clinical resources: featuring an extensive practice guide and supporting videos to support those working therapeutically with children and young people.
View and download here: uktraumacouncil.org/resources/traumatic-bereavement also available in Welsh
“Traumatic bereavement” by the UK Trauma Council is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
References
1 NHS Digital Mental Health of Children and Young People in England, 2020 https://files.digital.nhs.uk/AF/AECD6B/mhcyp_2020_rep_v2.pdf
2 Announced on 27 March 2021.