Following the success of our 5 Steps to Mental Health seminars, we are pleased to be rolling out a new series of free seminars for education staff, focusing on a broad range of topics relating to mental health and wellbeing.
Our first webinar of the series, An introduction to traumatic bereavement, was held on 15th June 2021, and focused on supporting staff, pupils and their families in dealing with bereavement; and in particular traumatic bereavement.
A recording of this seminar can be found by clicking on the tab below.
If you have any questions about our seminars or our 5 Steps to Mental Health and Wellbeing Framework please email schoolsinmind@annafreud.org
Seminars and materials
- Schools in Mind: An introduction to traumatic bereavement seminar
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This seminar, chaired by Jaime Smith, hosted our colleagues from the UK Trauma Council (UKTC). The UKTC is a group of leading experts, drawn from a variety of disciples across all four nations of the United Kingdom (UK). It is the first UK-wide platform bringing together expertise in research, practice, policy and lived experience in the field of childhood trauma. The UKTC is hosted and supported by the Anna Freud Centre.
There have been more than 130,000 UK deaths due to the coronavirus pandemic. It has created situations in which a death comes unexpectedly, without the chance to say goodbye, or where family members feel guilt that they may have brought the virus into the home. A huge number of children and young people will have been directly affected, through the death of a family member or someone else who was important in their life.
Being bereaved is not, in itself, a mental health problem. However in a traumatic bereavement, how the child or young person experiences or understands the death – that is, the meaning they make of it – results in it being experienced as traumatic. It is vital that these children are identified and given the appropriate help and support.
This seminar aimed to help explain and identify traumatic bereavement, understand how it differs from 'normal' bereavement, and give education staff an introduction to how to support children and young people when experiencing a traumatic bereavement.
Speakers included:
- David Trickey (Co-Director, UKTC; Consultant Clinical Psychologist at the Anna Freud Centre)
- Beck Ferrari (Child Bereavement Specialist)
- Jaime Cronk (Specialist Outreach Teacher, Social, Emotional and Mental Health at Five Acre Wood School and across Maidstone district)
Download the presentation slides.
Attendee feedback
"I just wanted to email and say I cannot thank you all enough for this TREASURE TROVE of information, advice, strategies etc. that has been shared. My school has benefitted greatly and I have upskilled in so many areas. Please keep going, this stuff changes lives."
- Attendee feedback from our Working Together seminar