Facilitating Children’s Grief

Abstract

A program of education and support is essential for children and their parent or adult caregivers when the children have experienced the death of a significant person. Children need guidance on how to deal with their profound feelings of grief. The purpose of this article is to give school nurses the ability to help children face the strange new world that follows the death experience. The review of literature defines commonly used terms, describes the mourning process experienced by children, and offers school nurses basic information about grief. The article presents the critical elements necessary for planning and implementing a 6-week grief education and support program that offers children and their parent or adult caregivers permission to grieve and the tools with which to process grief.