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Grief is often described as a normal and natural reaction to significant experiences of change and loss. Grief however, is not often not named beyond bereavement and yet, for children and young people living in care, grief accompanies their experiences of ongoing and perpetual change and loss.
Although the experience of grief affects our whole, with physical, emotional, cognitive, behavioural and spiritual (how we make sense of life) manifestations, we often do not help children and young people to make these connections, and they can spend most of their lives wondering about why or how they came to be the way they are.
This presentation will name and share grief theory to reframe and understand the grief experiences of children and young people in care. By reframing these experiences with knowledge regarding disenfranchised grief, ambivalent relationships and ambiguous loss, we build our own knowledge and capacity as caregivers are better able to understand their experiences and support them to respond.
We will explore using the metaphor of the ‘seasons’ and the learning objectives in the Seasons for Growth program and how these can assist professionals, adult carers and children alike.
PCA Families acknowledges the First Nations peoples of all Country throughout Australia. We are grateful for continued connections to lands, waters, seas and communities. We pay respect to Elders past and present as we express our intention to move together to a place of justice and partnership. We acknowledge sovereignty has never been ceded and Australia was, and always will be, Aboriginal lands.
PCA Families has a zero tolerance of child abuse and we are committed to establishing and maintaining child safe environments.
