Staff identified a growing need for bereavement and loss support for school aged children, young people and their families due to the increasing number of families requiring support from trust services such as school nursing and paediatric psychology.
Bereaved children and young people are at an increased risk of:
- exclusion from school
- attempted /completed suicide
- poor educational attainment
- exposure to financial hardship
- involvement with the criminal justice system
- unemployment
- early mortality and physical ill-health
- diagnosed with mental health issue
Staff wanted to provide a programme which would aim to increase young people’s awareness of their resilience skills, increase awareness of normal and prolonged grief disorder, and increase awareness of supports which are available both inside and outside of the school setting.
Staff recognised that earlier, proactive support could reduce the severity of need and promote healthier long-term outcomes.
The team wanted to ensure the bereavement and loss support programme would be impactful, relevant, sensitive and meaningful for the young people availing of the service. Staff wanted to ensure service users were involved from the outset and continuously throughout the design of the programme.
In response the team developed ‘Seasons of life’, an innovative school-based programme designed to support young people navigating grief and loss. Uniquely delivered by a multidisciplinary team of healthcare professionals, the programme provides early intervention within a familiar and accessible environment.
Seasons of Life’ supports young people experiencing a wide range of losses—including bereavement, parental separation, being in care, or having a family member in prison. The programme educates participants on the signs and symptoms of grief, the difference between normal and prolonged grief, and where to find help.
Through a combination of narrative and art therapy techniques, the programme offers a safe and supportive space for young people to share stories of strength, resilience, and loss—with both professionals and peers who understand.
Its goal is to empower young people to actively engage in their grief journey, build healthy coping strategies, and access timely support. Each session also includes the opportunity for 1:1 conversations and onward referral where needed, helping to prevent more complex emotional needs in the future.
The team wanted to involve service users from the outset of the project. The team delivered a pilot workshop in a post-primary school and collected data from the participants, school staff and healthcare staff.
We also consulted with a bereaved parent and her daughter to co-design changes for future workshops.
To deepen engagement young people, school staff and parents/carers joined our project steering group, contributing to co-design of the workshops.
The suggested amendments to the workshop content were evaluated by the young people who attended. We used various different methods to collect their feedback., such as pre and post workshop questionnaires, a focus group, semi-structured interviews and data was also gathered via written comments or drawings on paper tablecloths during sessions which allowed anonymous sharing and no requirement to speak in front of the wider group.
In the focus group we used the 1-2-4-All liberating structure technique to ensure everyone’s opinions and feedback was heard, and their input led to further change.
A workshop information leaflet was co-designed with the young people and circulated for comments.
The Seasons of Life workshops exceeded expectations, producing positive outcomes for young people, school staff and families. Unexpectedly, school staff shared their own grief experiences, allowing our team to support them. Additionally, family members and carers informed us they had sought support for their own grief after seeing positive changes in young attendees.
Impact was measured in various ways, and we collected both quantitative and qualitative data.
Our team designed pre – and post-workshop questionnaires which were completed anonymously by the young people. Results showed increased awareness of resilience skills, increased understanding of normal and prolonged grief, and increased knowledge about available supports
All young people found the workshops helpful, 85% wanted to attend again and 15% reported they were considering attending a further workshop.
Semi-structured interviews revealed attendees had gone on to have more open communication about grief and they had accessed some services we had signposted them to following participation at a workshop.
In some schools, children who had previously disengaged with school life attended on the day solely to attend the workshop.
Workshops raised awareness of the role of the school nurse and other health services. There were numerous onward referrals to mental health services, Cruse, and school counsellors.
The workshops empowered the young people to form peer support groups in schools. The young people recognised that coming together with other people who felt similar to them reduced feelings of loneliness in grief. They made new connections and friendships with other young people in the school whom they didn’t know prior to the workshops.
Having the young people and other service users involved in co-designing the programme has truly benefitted the design of the workshops. There has been a huge value from them sharing their lived experiences with the health professionals.
Furthermore, some of the young people attended another session and could see that we had listened to their suggestions for change and improvement and this made them feel valued and they continued to want to work with us.
Seasons of Life information leaflet – co-designed with young people
