Traumatic Bereavement: Supporting children and young people at school or college
A course developed by the UK Trauma Council designed to help young people cope with their expereinces.
About this training
This evidence-based training has been developed by experts from the UK Trauma Council, and is delivered by the Clinical Co-Lead of the Traumatic Bereavement resource portfolio.
The way that a child or young person experiences or understands the death - the meaning they make of it - can result in it being experienced as traumatic. The trauma gets in the way of the typical process of grief and blocks the child or young person's ability to process the loss. This can result in difficulties that can be severe and long lasting.
Traumatic bereavement may be easily missed or misunderstood, meaning that children’s difficulties are not recognised. It is vital that these children are identified and given appropriate help and support.
Delivered online, this training will introduce traumatic bereavement, explain how it differs from more typical grief, and explore practical approaches to support children and young people in education settings who may have experienced a traumatic bereavement.
The number of delegates is intentionally limited to ensure that there is time and space for discussions and scope to tailor the content to the specific needs of the group.
Please do not hesitate to contact the UK Trauma Council if you have any questions about this training.
Aims of this training
The aim of this training is to train SENCOs, mental health leads and pastoral leads in education settings to recognise and support children and young people who may have experienced traumatic bereavement. The training outcomes are to:
To understand what traumatic bereavement is and how to recognise children and young people at risk.
To develop confidence in having difficult conversations with traumatically bereaved children and young people.
To understand how to develop support structures around those adults' supporting children and young people experiencing traumatic bereavement.
To understand when and how to refer children and young people struggling with traumatic bereavement to specialist bereavement and NHS mental health services.
To know how to support your education setting's response to a bereavement.
Who is this training for?
This training is for SENCOs, mental health or pastoral leads and for those who have a role in school or colleges directly supporting children and young people’s mental health. This training is also suitable for early years and foundation stage practitioners, frontline education staff working with children 2-6 years.
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This evidence-based course has been developed by experts from the UK Trauma Council (UKTC), drawing on the latest research and their own experience of working with traumatically bereaved children and young people in education and bereavement service settings.
The UKTC is a group of leading experts, drawn from a variety of disciplines 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.
The course is delivered by Beck Ferrari, a UKTC expert in traumatic bereavement:
Beck has her own independent bereavement service working therapeutically with children and young people, and supporting education settings, and is the Clinical Co-Lead for the UKTC’s recent work on traumatic bereavement. Beck’s early career was as a teacher and SENCO. She completed her MSc in Cognitive Behaviour Therapy at Anna Freud Centre/University College London, specialising in Trauma-Focused CBT. Read Beck Ferrari’s full profile here.
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"Several things Beck shared I will use in my own practice i.e. the ‘wave’ metaphor (I especially liked the wording she used) and the importance of ‘small talk’ if you sense a young person is ‘avoidant’. I have used RCADS forms before but didn’t understand the scoring, so was grateful for the slides and explanation on that. I will also definitely use the CRIES 8 form in future (I hadn’t heard of this and I think it will be a good fit for many of the students I support)." Participant, January 2024
"It has given me ideas in how we can start to support our students and give the students a choice in what kind of support they would like." Participant, January 2024
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This training is run in person and online (check the specific dates to understand the format the training will be delivered in.)
The online platform, Zoom will be used to deliver online training. Prior to booking, please ensure you meet the system requirements so you can join this training session, to test your equipment visit Zoom.us/test and follow the instructions.
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Upon booking, you will be asked to confirm that you have read and accept our terms and conditions and our privacy notice. Please read these documents before booking:
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