New Online Course - Supporting Young People Experiencing Grief and Bereavement
Today we have launched a brand new online course for youth workers on supporting young people experiencing grief and bereavement.
Bereavement and grief are common childhood experiences[1] so it stands that youth workers in Scotland need to be equipped to support young people in a compassionate, rights-based way.
"Our contribution looks to build on the confidence of Scotland’s youth workers and other professionals in discussing with young people across their communities, one of our least discussed and understood emotions - Grief.”
Daryl Cuthbert, Cruse Scotland
There has been an increasing national movement to improve bereavement support for children and young people, led by children and young people themselves. In the past year, the Growing Up Grieving report by The National Childhood Bereavement Project and the UK Commission on Bereavement released reports with recommendations about how children and young people experiencing bereavement can be better supported. Key to their recommendations were that all those around children and young people can support them. For us at NKBL, it was clear that youth workers are integral to this.
In partnership with Cruse Scotland and Ellie Craig MSYP, we have developed an online course to give youth workers the skills and knowledge required to compassionately support young people experiencing grief and bereavement.
Through the course, learners will:
- Develop an understanding of different theories of grief
- Gain knowledge of how adolescents experience and cope with grief
- Learn how to support young people using a rights-based approach
- Develop skills for having compassionate conversations
- Learn about sudden and violent deaths and their impact on the grieving process
Ellie Craig MSYP said, “I think it’s really important that young people who have suffered bereavement know that they aren’t alone and that there is support around them. It can be hard for the adults around them to know what to do so that’s why I’m so happy for this training to support youth workers.”
Daryl Cuthbert, National Training Manager at Cruse Scotland, said, “Our vision is for a compassionate Scotland in which the impact of bereavement and grief is properly understood and supported. We’re therefore delighted to collaborate with No Knives, Better Lives and to share the learning, knowledge and understanding of our volunteers who support Scotland’s bereaved, in this learning project. Our contribution looks to build on the confidence of Scotland’s youth workers and other professionals in discussing with young people across their communities, one of our least discussed and understood emotions - Grief.”
Emily Beever, Senior Development Officer at YouthLink Scotland said, “Youth workers play an important role in young people’s lives so it’s only right that they are properly equipped to support young people experiencing grief and bereavement. We hope this course for youth workers will address the current training gap and ensure that more young people are supported in the way they need through youth work.”
We hope our new online course can play a part in the movement. Start learning now.
[1] Research by Paul and Vaswani found that more than 50% of children have been bereaved of a close family member by age 8, rising to 62% of all children by age 10: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2632352420975043
