Understanding grief, loss and trauma

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.

A little bit about Louise...

Louise’s passion for the value of group work led her to her current role. With a social work and early years background, Louise has worked across statutory and not for profit services with a focus on family support and wellbeing. After undertaking a placement as a student social worker in a foster care agency and working with children and young people in Out Of Home Care as a Social Worker Louise has a passion for supporting Carers and their wellbeing.

At work, Louise enjoys building relationships and widening the reach of community support; and at home, she enjoys the changes and joy that comes with parenting teenagers