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To fund a fully qualified Senior Practitioner to work directly with bereaved children and their families for one year.

100%
Categories

  • Community Support & Development Community Support & Development
  • Education/Training/Employment Education/​Training/​Employment
  • Health/Wellbeing Health/​Wellbeing
  • Human Rights/Advocacy Human Rights/​Advocacy
  • Beneficiaries

    • Children (3-18) Children (3-18)
    • Young People (18-30) Young People (18-30)

    Situation

    Our Senior Practitioner team provide support and guidance to bereaved children and their families who are rebuilding their lives after the death of a parent or sibling. Our team are highly qualified and experienced, with various backgrounds in social work, psychology and psychotherapy. They ensure children receive appropriate and timely support to help them become resilient adults. This specialist support includes: · Staffing a National Helpline · Writing and producing publications, used to provide guidance and information for service users and those directly supporting a bereaved child. · Individual work · Family assessment · Group work · Supporting carers, schools and other professionals. For example, offering a comprehensive family assessment is a key intervention in itself. Even though the family will know of the organisation because telephone contact will have been made and resources sent, the initial meeting, usually at their home, will typically be the first time that the family has actually come face-to-face with the service. It is therefore vital that all members of the family perceive the assessment as a positive, engaging and relevant experience. To achieve a consistent and comprehensive picture of the main issues facing a bereaved child, team members are trained using a detailed and structured therapeutic assessment process. Flexibility and intuitive clinical judgement are of course encouraged, as such ‘guided conversations’ respect and reflect that there is no such thing as an ‘ordinary family’ and indeed ‘no right way to grieve’. The information gained during this process is used to inform a spider diagram, which records what is discussed throughout the assessment. Sections of this diagram include feelings, concerns, goals, the future, the current situation and memories. This illustration is a respectful and accessible way to record meetings; a copy is given to the family to facilitate more opportunities for them to talk at home. By empowering them to take control it is hoped that they will be able to support each other in taking the next steps forward. Through the work of dedicated Senior Practitioners, it is hoped that families are more able to increase their understanding and communication with each other, enabling them to begin to live with the change that death has inflicted on their lives. One of the specific methods used to begin an assessment, is a family tree or ‘genogram’. This can give the Practitioner valuable insights into how the family functions, such as levels of communication, respect or conflict. This process is an attempt to make it easier for family’s to talk about a series of difficult issues, opening avenues of communication and encouraging the children to talk more openly and feel that it is ok to ask questions. The process also helps to identify key issues for families and ‘pave the way’ for future, more open discussions between themselves. Without the vital and professional support of Senior Practitioner’s this vulnerable group of young people are more likely to suffer from suppressed grief and emotional repression which can lead to destructive behaviour in the long-term such as drug abuse, depression and self-harm. Their work helps families to remember the person who has died and talk openly with each other, often promoting the development of confidence in the children and reducing feelings of isolation.

    Solution

    100%
    Categories

  • Community Support & Development Community Support & Development
  • Education/Training/Employment Education/​Training/​Employment
  • Health/Wellbeing Health/​Wellbeing
  • Human Rights/Advocacy Human Rights/​Advocacy
  • Beneficiaries

    • Children (3-18) Children (3-18)
    • Young People (18-30) Young People (18-30)