Faith-Based Support Case Study

After interviewing the social workers Hope and Hodge (2006) found that they had observed similar patterns regarding the factors that affect the adjustment of children who lost a parent to death. Boys tend to show externalizing behaviors whereas girls tend to show internalizing behaviors due to the lost of a parent. They found that the cognitive level rather than the age of the child affects their adjustment more. Therefore younger children and preadolescents seem to have more difficulty adjusting to the death of a parent than adolescents. The results did not support earlier findings that sudden death present more difficulty adjusting than expected death. Most of the participants reported that sudden and expected death is equally traumatic to children. The participants also said that the adjustment of the caretaker is important for a positive adjustment for the children. The caretaker must be able to grieve while supporting the child’s need to grieve. This study shows that children of different ages and genders react different to the death of a parent.

Death is a universally experienced phenomenon. In the United States alone, over 2.6 million people die each year (Center for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2015). For practitioners, it is of utmost importance to better understand the process of grief to develop better interventions for bereaved individuals.

The program will be based on the ATTEND model and Wolfelt’s 10 touchstones. Furthermore, this study will test the efficacy of this program in reducing the distressing symptoms associated with the loss of a child. This study will therefore address the following research questions: (1) Will the program be effective in treating symptoms commonly associated with grief?; (2) Will the grief-related symptoms remain decreased at the 6-month follow-up as compared to the pre-intervention?; (3) Will the gender of the participant impact the efficacy of the group in reducing grief-related symptoms? The following are the corresponding hypotheses: (1) participant’s level of grief-related symptoms will significantly decrease after the group, as evidence by a decrease in the scores on the IES-R and HSCL-25; (2) it is expected that the 6-month follow-up scores will not be significantly different than post-intervention scores, and will be significantly lower than pre-intervention scores; (3) there is no hypothesis given regarding gender differences, but it is a purpose of this study to explore the efficacy of this program in relation to gender

“What has changed is our way of coping and dealing with death and dying and our dying patients.”(Kubler-Ross 109) In “On the Fear of Death” by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, she discusses the changes that have happened over the past few decades. The author believes that these changes are responsible for the increased fear of death, the rising number of emotional problems, and the greater need for understanding of and coping with the problems of death and dying. The author says, “The fact that the children are allowed to stay at home where a fatality has stricken and are in included in the talk, discussion, and fears give them the feeling that hey are not alone in the grief and give them the comfort of shared responsibility and shared mourning.” (Kubler-Ross 110) She believes that allowing the children to stay and be involved in the grieving stage prepares them gradually and

Although the phenomenon of grief is a normal, healthy response to the death of someone loved, for children it is a traumatic ripping away of everything they have known. As a result, everyday life becomes utter chaos while familiarity and comfort vanish, emotionally propelling the griever into uncharted territory with innumerable questions and fears. When those uncertainties are not dealt with appropriately, grieving children tend to imagine circumstances that may be far worse than reality” (Pond, 2013, p. 113).

Bereavement and loss - The loss of a loved one such as a parent, sibling, grandparent or friend can turn a child’s world upside down. Grief can bring all sorts of emotions, upset, sadness, hurt and anger because they are gone and, fear because the child may be afraid of other loved ones dying too. A child can be affected by grief for a long period of time, and this may impact on their emotional and physical

Unplanned transition is the hardest for the children to cope with. As discussed by Stokes et al. (1999), a sensitive, responsive support needed more than ever when it was recognized that children and young people had experienced an unplanned transition such as bereavement. Whenever a child or adult is faced with traumatic life events, particularly the loss of a loved one, the ability to survive the emotional and physical pain associated with the event will be influenced by the individual’s level of personal resilience. Focusing entirely on their needs enables children to express their feelings, acknowledge their loss and develop skills to cope with their changed lives.

The last step is reorganization and restoration. This phase does not occur quickly. Here people begin to sort out suspicions and attempt to identify what was lost. There is a sense of release, renewed energy, more socialization, better judgments and more stable eating and sleeping habits. Readaptation to the loss does not mean forgetting. Adults can begin to restore emotional well being by acknowledging feelings, asking for support, reestablishing routines and reaching out to others. They can care for the needs of children by listening to their feelings and fears, providing information to clarify what occurred and whether it can affect their lives and by reestablishing routines that will comfort and reassure. There are many factors that influence the reaction of a child when death is announced to them. Factors include, the way the news is

It is believed that children do not experience grief until one has been through adolescents and can distinguish thoughts and feeling from emotions. According to Glass (1991), a child can grasp the notion of death during early childhood; and can begin to grief as early as six months (Willis, 2002). Willis (2002) believes from a moderate perspective that children begin to understand death and grieve approximately at three to four years old. Many times, small children are affected by loss and their grief is often underestimated. Children between the ages of three to five years old fall into stage one. During stage one; children view death as a going away from one place to another. It is believed that the deceased person has just relocated and is living in a new location. Stage two consists of children between the ages of five to nine years of old. In this phase, death can be fixed. It is thought that if one

Children who are grieving often struggle with life because they have lost a loved one. The loss may have been expected or unexpected, but the pain is still great. However, the way the person was lost and other factors surrounding the death, as well as the age of the child, can all affect how a counselor handles the child and his or her grief. Children can also grieve something other than a death, so there are many situations in which a child might need to see a grief counselor. Additionally, children who have been part of traumatic events where someone else has died may need more than just grief counseling because they will have survivor guilt and others issues which they will also have to face and work through. Empirical studies show that there are many different ways to provide a child with grief counseling, and that children can react very differently based on many characteristics. Counseling that is tailored to the child is the most significant way to help that child - and that is still not enough to convince every scholar that grief counseling actually has any benefit at all.

The loss of a loved one is a very crucial time where an individual can experience depression, somatic symptoms, grief, and sadness. What will be discussed throughout this paper is what the bereavement role is and its duration, as well as the definition of disenfranchised grief and who experiences this type of grief. I will also touch upon the four tasks of mourning and how each bereaved individual must accomplish all four tasks before mourning can be finalized. Lastly, with each of these topics, nursing implications will be outlined on how to care for bereaved individuals and their families.

This paper examines the implications of grief, bereavement and disenfranchised grief. Grief in response to a loss is a unique experience and is expressed distinctively by every individual. It is helpful to have models that outline the stages of grief that need to be experienced in order to achieve acceptance. However, their utility is limited by the reality that grief is immeasurably complex and individualized. Veterans and children are two groups at risk of developing disenfranchised grief. Therefore, it will be important for nurses to be able to identify those suffering with disenfranchised grief or other forms of maladaptive grief so appropriate intervention may be employed.

Nader and Salloum (2011) made clear that, at different ages, children differ in their understanding of the universality, inevitability, unpredictability, irreversibility, and causality of death. They believed, despite the increasing understanding with age of the physical aspects of death, a child may simultaneously hold more than one idea about the characteristics of death. However, factors that complete the determining nature of childhood grieving across different age groups may be a difficult task for a number of reasons including their environment in means of the support they have available, the child’s nature in terms of their personality, genetics, and gender, coping skills and previous experiences, the developmental age, grieving style, whether or not therapy was received, and the relationship to the deceased (Nader & Salloum, 2011). Crenshaw (2005) found that according to our current understanding of childhood traumatic grief and normal grief, thoughts and images of a traumatic nature are so terrifying, horrific, and anxiety provoking that they cause the child to avoid and shut out these thoughts and images that would be comforting reminders of the person who died. The distressing and intrusive images, reminders, and thoughts of the traumatic circumstances of the death, along with the physiological hyper-arousal associated with such re-experiencing, prevent the child from proceeding in a healthy way with the grieving process (Crenshaw, 2005). McClatchy, Vonk, and

The loss of an adult child is devastating just as is the death of a younger child. However, there are differences as to how both the parents react to such losses. In this case the paper focuses on loss of an adult child and how the parent copes with the situation. The paper will give insight on the situation that precedes the demise of the child such as trajectory of illnesses which is more recent. A review on how the parents deal with the loss after it occurs will be discussed as well as the various issues the parent faces. The impact on the parent after the child’s loss is also featured. There will be a summary of the findings then finally a section that will give the implications of the research and its importance to the field of psychology and an improvement in human beings

The child who died is considered a gift to the parents and family, and they are forced to give up that gift. Yet, as parents, they also strive to let their child's life, no matter how short, be seen as a gift to others. These parents seek to find ways to continue to love, honor, and value the lives of their children and continue to make the child's presence known and felt in the lives of family and friends. Bereaved parents often try to live their lives more fully and generously because of this painful experience.