Change, Loss and Bereavement in Highland

Children’s Grief Awareness Week: 17th – 23rd November 2025

Published on October 31, 2025 by Change, Loss and Bereavement in Highland

Thanks to a successful funding bid to the Scottish Government’s Whole Family Wellbeing Programme, the Change, Loss and Bereavement (CLB) Highland Working Group is pleased to announce that all 44 public and 16 school libraries within the High Life Highland network will now have physical copies of ten carefully selected books exploring themes of change, loss, and bereavement. In addition to the physical collection, a digital selection of titles will be available via Borrow Box, thanks to the support of the High Life Highland Libraries team. This blended approach ensures families across Highland can access these important resources in a way that suits their needs.

Stories can play a powerful role in helping children understand and process these experiences. They offer comfort, help normalise grief, and support emotional wellbeing in a way that is both accessible and age appropriate. We invite you to join members of the working group including Psychological services, Crocus and Archies on the 17^th November from 10am – 12pm in Fortrose Community Library, or in the afternoon (2.30pm – 4pm) at Aviemore Library.

We will have copies of the books available on the day to look at and they will be available in libraries from this date.

New resource: Talking to young people about suicide

Published on June 25, 2025 by Change, Loss and Bereavement in Highland

We’ve recently added a dedicated page to our website to support parents and carers in having open, compassionate conversations with young people about suicide. This resource offers practical guidance, conversation tips, and links to trusted support services. We encourage you to explore the page and take a look at our recommended book list, which includes helpful titles for both adults and young people navigating this difficult topic.

New Knowledge and Support Pathway

Published on December 4, 2024 by Change, Loss and Bereavement in Highland

Have you seen our updated training pathway yet? The CLB Highland team have been working hard behind the scenes to refresh what used to be our training pathway. We have replaced it with a more detailed document that should help you to think about what knowledge and support you need to feel prepared to support children and young people who are experiencing loss and change.

CLB Knowledge & Support Pathway 2024 Download

The new document reminds us to use the GIRFEC critical questions to help you think, in the first instance, about how you support children, young people and their families, as well as signposting to a range of policy, guidance, research, training and supports that you can access beyond this critical first step.

It also highlights the existing Tragic Events Guidance in instances where an immediate response may be required. This guidance includes a really useful Operational Checklist on page 7, that can walk you through the steps you should take (and who will be available to support) when this occurs.

Training Dates for 2025

Published on November 20, 2024 by Change, Loss and Bereavement in Highland

Dates are now live for CLB training on the CPD Calendar or via the HCPC Calendar. Have a look at our Training Pathway (our new knowledge and support pathway is on the way and will replace the pathway in the coming weeks) if you are considering whether this will be useful for you, or your staff.

We still have spaces available for our Seasons for Growth Children and Young People online training in January. See details above. Staff who train with us in January will receive a set of journals to run their first group, funded through the mental health and wellbeing fund.
We are interested in delivering Seasons training to an ASG in the summer term. If your school/ASG might be interested in this, please do get in touch.

Raising Awareness of The Promise in Highland

Published on November 1, 2024 by Change, Loss and Bereavement in Highland

This training is for anyone working in Highland who would like to learn more about The Promise, how The Promise originated and how we, in Highland, hope to deliver on this.

The Promise Scotland is the nation’s commitment to ensuring that all children and young people will grow up loved, safe and respected.

This is the first session of this training, but there will be four timetabled sessions a year via the HCPC calendar, and two sessions via the CPD calendar. As well as this, if you would like a more bespoke session offered to your team, or you are interested in becoming a Promise Ambassador, please contact Carrie McLaughlan.

Child Bereavement ECHO Sessions are returning…

Published on October 11, 2024 by Change, Loss and Bereavement in Highland

You may well remember that back in 2019, the Highland Hospice launched an ECHO for Childhood Bereavement. We are delighted to hear that this is returning, and this is your opportunity to get involved at the planning stages of the project.

BereavementFlyer (002)Download

Don’t worry if you haven’t heard of ECHO before, ECHO stands for Extension of Community Healthcare Options. The purpose is to share knowledge and best practice to improve outcomes for our communities Project ECHO | Highland Hospice. You do not need to be involved in healthcare to attend this session, the Highland Hospice are extending the facility to all professionals.

Way back in 2019 we launched the first ECHO for Childhood Bereavement. We are relaunching and we would like to invite you to come along to a short session to find out more and see if it’s something you would like to be involved in? To provide context, the 2019 ECHO was 1 hour, weekly over a 6 week duration and covered subjects of suicide, autism, the teenage brain and vocabulary. There was a short 20 minute training and then a conversation around a real case study to inform practice. Please see attached leaflet for more information and register your interest. Please contact Louise on l.mainland@highlandhospice.co.uk if you have any questions.

Seasons for Growth Training 2024 – 25

Published on May 28, 2024 by Change, Loss and Bereavement in Highland

Our Seasons for Growth dates for session 2024 – 25 are now live. We intend to offer the C&YP Programme training twice next year as we focus again on supporting those who train in the programme to be able to go on and deliver it in their settings. We will potentially offer a third training in term 4, depending on demand and implementation of the programme. Dates and contact information are in the flyer above.

We will host one reconnector a term for our trained companions. Remember that you should run a group within one year of being trained to become accredited and that you should attend a reconnector session once every two years to remain accredited. If three years pass and you have not delivered you must attend a Refresher course. If you have not delivered the Programme within 5 years you must retrain. Dates and contact details in the flyer above.

We were able to offer the Seasons Parent Programme training this year, and we are delighted to increase the number of staff trained and able to offer Parents the two components of the programme that support them to support their children in relation to bereavement or separation and divorce. If you are a trained companion and you would like to know more about this, please get in touch.

Mental Health Awareness Week 2024

Published on May 13, 2024 by Change, Loss and Bereavement in Highland

Mental Health Awareness Week takes place this year from 13^th to 19^th May. The Mental Health Foundation have come up with the theme ‘Movement: Moving more for our mental health’.

Are there ways in which you can ‘move more’ to promote your mental well-being? See The Mental Health Foundation and Mental Health UK websites for more information:

https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/our-work/public-engagement/mental-health-awareness-week

Mental Health Awareness Week 2024

It is also worth checking out Think Health Think Nature’s post about Green Health Week 2024 which runs from the 11th – 18th May. They have a programme of Green Health events that are being staged across Highland during the course of the week

April is the Month of the Military Child – a time to celebrate together

Published on April 2, 2024 by Change, Loss and Bereavement in Highland

Highland has many Children and Young People from Armed Forces Families: Army, RAF, Navy and Marines from Regular, Reserve and Veteran families.

We hope you will join the many Schools and Early Learning Centres across Highland, nationally and internationally by raising awareness and understanding of being a Child or Young Person from an Armed Forces family; their lived experiences, challenges they may have faced and overcome, the numerous countries they may have lived in, the cultures they may have experienced.

The Month of the Military Child uses the Dandelion as its logo: their seeds are blown and scattered but they land, take root, blossom, and thrive.

Celebrate their Unique Life and Journey

Click Here to access lots of Month of the Military Child resources and materials

Visit and explore Armed Forces Families Highland website – packed full of information for everyone.

Neurodiversity Celebration Week 18th – 24th March 2024

Published on March 18, 2024 by Change, Loss and Bereavement in Highland

Neurodiversity refers to the different ways the brain can work and interpret information, people naturally think about things differently but for some people this difference can be attributed to a neurodevelopmental difference such as autism, ADHD, Tourette’s, Developmental Language Disorder and others. Neurodiversity Celebration Week is a worldwide initiative that challenges stereotypes and misconceptions about neurological differences. It aims to transform how neurodivergent individuals are perceived and supported and recognises the many talents and advantages of being neurodivergent.

A child or young person with neurodevelopmental differences is likely to find change, loss and bereavement especially challenging because of their differences in processing information. This could be a big change such as the death of a relative or a much smaller change such as leaving school to return home at the end of the day.

For more information see the Pines website (the Pines is the neurodevelopmental service in Highland), this includes several videos: https://www.thepineshighland.com/dealing-with-change