Author: Change, Loss and Bereavement in Highland

At this time of national mourning, children and young people might have questions about what has happened or be dealing with feelings of grief for numerous reasons. Adults supporting children and young people might need some guidance on how to respond. Winston’s Wish have created a support page with easy to read information and plan to update it with resources and information, including guides on how to support young people and answer their questions Winston’s Wish – Supporting Children and young People on the Death of the Queen

Please also remember that we have a book list and other resources that you can find under the Professionals section of the website.

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Are you considering what training you would like to access in the year ahead? Or are you a companion who needs to attend a reconnector to remain accredited? Has your accreditation lapsed, but you would like to be able to still deliver Seasons? Trained CYP Companion but now interested in being able to offer the Parent Programme?

It’s never too early to get booked on to our training for the year ahead. Visit the Seasons Training page to see all of the dates available to new and existing Seasons companions.

If you are completely new to Seasons, take a look at our Training Pathway first to decide which training and which staff are most suited to what is on offer.

Our Change, Loss & Bereavement Training Dates for 2022/23 will be published soon and sign up will be via the Highland CPD calendar. Further information to follow.

We have created a short video that may be useful for you if you would like to watch and hear about the Seasons Children & Young People Programme or the Seasons Parent Programme. This may be particularly useful for sharing with School staff, Parents or C&YP if you are looking at getting the programme up and running in your school.

Keep an eye on the blog for our training dates for the year ahead, they will be coming very soon!

Our Change, Loss and Bereavement sessions continue to be on offer for the remainder of this academic year. Our next session is next Tuesday, the 22nd of March at 4pm. The session is delivered over google meet, gives an introduction to change and loss and is suitable for any member of staff working with children, young people and their families.
For more information, or to book a place please contact jo.chamberlain@highland.gov.uk

We also continue to offer Seasons for Growth C&YP Training and Parent Programme Training. Our C&YP Training is almost full for the year, with one or two spaces left on the June dates – if you want one of these spaces, get in touch quickly!

Our Parent Programme Training is running for the last time this academic year on Tuesday 26th April. If you or a member of your team are already trained in the C&YP programme and would like to be able to deliver the Parent Programme please get in touch (again ASAP) to sign up. Places are limited and we are placing orders for materials in the coming days. If you want further information about what the programme and the training entails, again; get in touch with Jo to find out more.

Just a quick reminder that our CLB training is running on the In-Service day next week. If you or someone you know has been keen to access this training please contact jo.chamberlain@highland.gov.uk for joining instructions. The session is 1.5 hours long, with time built in for questions and discussion.

See how the training fits in to the bigger picture on our Training Pathway.

Please also note the dates available for the rest of the school year. To book on to one of these just get in touch.

Apologies to those of you who logged in and waited for the CLB training this afternoon. The wrong timings were on the flyer. There we were an hour earlier thinking nobody was joining us. Hopefully you will be able to join us at one of our sessions next term. See attached, updated flyer, with all of the right times on it, and sign up information.

In our final post of the week, we just want to thank you for reading and by doing so marking To Absent Friends Festival with us.

We want to remind you that normalising grief, children & young people come to realise that they are not the only ones. That there isn’t something ‘wrong’ with them for feeling the way they feel. That is why we can’t recommend books and stories enough.

Some other good books read loud are I miss you: a first look at death, or You’ll Find Me – Children’s book about loss and Grieving

The Wilds Poetry Comic is a beautiful resource for older young people.

Child Bereavement UK have some really useful resources and videos, including this one about supporting a bereaved child who is autistic or one about telling a child that someone has died.

As communities around Scotland remember, tell stories, celebrate and reminisce about people they have loved and who have died, it might be that you know of a child or young person who has been bereaved. You might also be wondering how to support them. Some of the information in our Tragic Event Guidance may be helpful. There is a section with advice on how to support children and young people who have been bereaved and who are grieving.

Most bereaved young people with supportive networks such as family, friends and school will manage their grief. Having trusted adults around them can make a big difference to a bereaved young person.

Scotland recognised the importance of supporting those who are grieving when the first Bereavement Charter for Adults and Children was launched last year. This Charter provides a set of statements which describe how in Scotland we can support a person or a group of people experiencing bereavement. The Charter declared Good Bereavement Care is a human right and is underpinned by a desire to make sure that in Scotland, we can do all that we can to support people who might be experiencing difficulties following the death of someone they know or somebody in their community.  

As a follow on from yesterday’s post about memories, the booklist, and read aloud stories available on YouTube we have set up our own little Highland CLB group wall of remembrance.

It is on a Jamboard, and we would love it if you wanted to add a memory or a tribute to someone who has died.

The Jamboard is relatively easy to use, just click on the link and select a ‘sticky note’ from the tool bar. You should then be able to write your message and add it to the board.

To Absent Friends Festival has its own board, which you could also contribute to. Or you might want to set up your own one to encourage others to share memories in a less public forum.

Either way, let’s keep sharing stories, enjoying photographs and remembering!

We often talk about the power of remembering. How it keeps people alive, how it is an excuse to remember, to tell stories, to celebrate and to reminisce.

Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge shows how powerful remembering can be, not just when someone has died. Children and Young People benefit from books like this being available so as to normalise remembering and talking about people who have died. It gives them permission to remember, and to think of the good times. Children have told us that reading these books at home with family members has allowed them to talk about people who have died and have really special conversations with their loved ones about them.

There are other books on our booklist that talk about memories, such as Badgers Parting Gifts or The Memory Tree.