Setting up a school bereavement group

A bereavement group can provide significant support to pupils by helping them realize they are not the only ones in school who have experienced loss, and to ease the sense of isolation that bereaved children and young people often feel.

The demands on your time to meet the mental health and well-being needs of vulnerable pupils in your care are significant. Forming a group can be an efficient way to manage these needs while offering valuable peer support.

We recommend two members of staff. This is so that in the event of a pupil becoming upset a member of staff would be available to give the 1:1 attention the pupil requires. Ideally one adult needs to be accessible to the children at other parts of the school day to provide time and space for the pupil to offload or to sit quietly.

Simon Says offers bereavement training to Hampshire. Portsmouth and Southampton schools, as well as webinars throughout the year on topics such as how to set up and run a bereavement group. Let us know if you’d like to participate in this training and support.

We suggest no more than ten children in a group. Staff may want to consider splitting the group depending upon the age and stage of the children as this will impact upon their understanding of what has happened. It is important to try and achieve a balance of personalities so that children can work well together and be a support to each other within and outside of the group sessions.

Ideally, the session should take place before a break or at the end of the day, allowing pupils some time to reset before they need to be ready to learn again. We recommend scheduling a midweek session which lasts about an hour, so that staff have the opportunity to check in with the children the next day.

This depends on the school’s schedule and availability. Staff could hold sessions either once per term or every half term. Our packs include plenty of extension activities, thus allowing additional sessions to run with the same group.

At Simon Says, three core ‘golden threads’ guide everything we do, and all our activities are built around the following foundational elements:

• Memories and relocation – honouring and preserving the memories of a loved one, whilst helping the child/young person integrate their presence into their life, allowing them to move forward with their loved one rather than leaving them behind.
• Coping with big feelings – normalising and knowing that all these feelings are ok, whilst developing strategies to manage them in daily life.
• Growing hope – building a store of hopeful things, recognizing that it’s okay to laugh and enjoy life, and believing in a future that is worth living.