Helping Children Cope with Loss: Legacy Interventions

Course overview

Course Description: This course is based on material published in Continuity in Education and is available as an open-access article. Early experiences of death and loss have a significant impact on children's coping and development across the lifespan, whether the deceased was a family member, friend, or even classmate. Given the sense of community and continuity that children often garner in schools, teachers are uniquely positioned to tailor and facilitate grief supports to meet the developmental and coping needs of their students in response to loss, especially in the case of a classmate's death. Legacy building interventions, though healthcare-derived, have internationally been applied to promote self-expression and meaning making for grieving children and families; the underlying theory and practice of such interventions may render them useful even in classroom environments. Combining art-based activities with storytelling and reflection, legacy building activities may promote awareness and understanding of death in children and adolescents while encouraging adaptive grief responses. This paper describes how teachers may apply legacy building interventions to support students experiencing the death of a classmate. Two sample curricular plans are provided, one targeted towards elementary school children, the other towards middle and high school students. Although these resources appear ready for immediate implementation, it is essential that teachers adapt them-based on their unique classroom, school system, and sociocultural context to best meet the needs of grieving students. This course on interventions for helping children coping with loss is designed for clinical social workers, psychologists, professional counselors, nurses, and substance abuse counselors who do clinical work. This course is appropriate for intermediate and advanced level practitioners who wish to develop their expertise with interventions for helping children coping with loss. The course material includes a literature review of interventions and research. It may also be useful for licensed clinicians who require continuing clinical education courses for license renewal. The course is based on a journal article that includes research. It contains statistical analysis and data that some clinicians enjoy reading and others do not. A significant benefit of reading peer reviewed research-based articles for continuing education is that they provide practitioners with the latest findings in their field. Authors: Lawrence, Jones, Boles Learning Objectives: This course will provide the practitioner with detailed information regarding interventions for helping children coping with loss. Specifically, a professional will: Recognize hallmarks of the grieving process in children. Describe the process of legacy building and its applications in helping children cope with grief. Identify considerations for implementation of legacy building. Citation: Lawrence, A., Jones, M., & Boles, J. (2022). Helping Children Cope with Loss: Legacy Interventions for the Grieving Classroom. Continuity in Education. https://doi.org/10.5334/ cie.45