How does a school deal with bereavement?

The perspective of a school chaplain

The National School Chaplains’ Conference, 13-15 June 2013

Note found on room door, Oxford, 1980

Your father’s dead.

Ring home.

The Head Porter

The inevitable and the traumatic

• Boy dies three days after accidentally ingesting rat poison.• Boy talking to Thames Valley Police on phone kills himself

with shotgun.• Widowed biology teacher is found dead in bed (heart attack)

by daughter on her eleventh birthday.• Ex-pupil on gap year killed in car accident (mini hits wall).• Ex-pupil on gap year killed in car accident (car hits tree).• Boy hangs himself in his room at school.• Parent shoots wife and daughter before setting fire to house

and shooting himself.

A suicide at school

Chaplain’s priorities Questions/Issues• The whole school

community.• The housemaster and his

wife.• The room-mate and his

friends.• Other boys in the house.• The matron.• The headmaster.• The boy’s sisters and

parents.

• ‘Business as usual’, ‘stop the clocks’ or a middle way?

• The funeral arrangements. • Who will manage pastoral care

of the bereaved? • Awkward questions and feelings:

– Why did he do it? – Why didn’t he talk to anybody? – Could we have done anything to

prevent him? – What to do with the room in

which he killed himself?

Preparing staff and pupils for the inevitable (Procedures, relationships and mind set

- institutional and personal)

• RS/PSHE - Death and bereavement and the Problem of Evil • The School Counsellor

• The Bereavement Group

• Abbey in the Remembrance Season

• School Bereavement Policy (INSET)

• Thoughts for the Day, reflecting on tragedy and disaster

The Bereavement Group

• History – A pupil initiative • Purpose – Education (breaking the taboo) and

therapeutic value.• Practice – Tea and cake and comfy sofas.– Confidentiality.– Meeting frequency. – Difficulty of getting pupils to go along the first time.– Silence – the pregnant pause.– Girls are different from boys; emotional literacy.– Abbey – ‘What does your father do?’

A school bereavement policy

• Context• Guidelines for breaking news about a death of

a pupil or member of staff• Things to consider in the days following the

news of the death of a pupil• Information sharing pathway• Template of a letter informing parents of the

death of a pupil or a member of staff

Bereavement Don'ts • Don’t think you have to be the person to help a bereaved person.

Their friends may do a better job of providing support.• Don’t think you have to follow the bereavement policy. Play it by

ear!• Don’t say ‘Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help’. Do

keep in contact so you know whether there is anything you can do to help.

• Don’t try to find something positive about the person’s death. Don’t tell them that ‘everything is going to be alright’ or that ‘everything happens for a reason’.

• Don’t say you know how they feel. • Don’t say anything that implies a judgment about their feelings.• Don’t tell them what they should feel or do.• Don’t change the subject when they mention the person who

died.• Don’t avoid the bereaved person.

Bereavement Dos - permission and acknowledgement • Do let your concern be genuine.• Do be available to listen.• Do allow them to express as much grief as they are feeling at the moment,

and are willing to share.• Do encourage them to be patient with themselves, not to expect too much

of themselves, and not to impose any ‘shoulds’ on themselves. • Do allow them to talk about the person who died, including any negative

feelings they have toward the person who died.• Do send a condolence card/an anniversary card.• Do ask bereaved children how they would like teachers to act towards

them.• Do teach other children to know what to say and how to handle difficult

emotional situations.• Do allow children to compartmentalize school and home.• Do make allowances for children who are grieving, though this can be

complicated.

What would you do next?

It is term time. The mother of two girls in the school suffers a stroke. She remains in intensive care in hospital for nearly two weeks without regaining consciousness. From the beginning, the girls have been told by their father that the prognosis is good. The decision is taken to turn off the life support system.

A pupil, both of whose parents are dead (father from a heart attack, mother from cancer when he was eleven years old) who is approaching his GCSEs, is underperforming academically and there have been a series of disciplinary issues. The boy’s housemaster comes to you for help.

On the school ski trip in the Easter holidays, a pupil has been found on the floor in her room. She has a head wound, perhaps incurred in a fall. She is unconscious. An ambulance is called. At the hospital the doctor assumes she has been drinking. It is altitude sickness. For 24 hours she remains in a coma. She dies without regaining consciousness.

It is Saturday morning. A member of staff has a heart attack while he is teaching. The pupils alert a teacher in the classroom next door. An ambulance is called. CPR is done until the paramedics arrive. Despite a speedy response, the member of staff is pronounced dead on arrival at hospital.

Useful links

• For those wishing to write their own school bereavement policy: http://www.071128_noriordan_sen_sebd_bereavement_policy_schools.doc

• For those looking for lists of bereavement dos and don’ts:http://www.anemptychair.com/topic-do'sanddon'ts.html