Abstract

Children experience death differently from adults and therefore need different kinds of help when they are bereaved. Understanding Children's Experiences of Parental Bereavement is a highly practical book for teachers and parents that explains how best to help and support a child whose parent or carer has died. The guidelines are based on the author's experience of work with child bereavement or loss, especially in schools, and of his research in this area. Project Iceberg involved adults who had been through the experience of bereavement while at school and looked retrospectively at the usefulness or otherwise of adult interventions at the time. The book includes discussion of such topics as funerals and the significance of rituals, as well as the importance of a careful transition back to school and of effective communication.

As well as offering valuable insight into the impact of death on children, the author provides practical guidelines for how teachers and parents can better support children through the first stages of parental bereavement while they are at school.

For a bereaved child, school is a paradox. It can be both a haven from the emotional intensity of home and a source of additional demands. It can provide support and generate feelings of isolation and alienation. The challenge for teachers is to recognise how to develop school as a positive resource for bereaved children, which is the main focus of Holland's study.
Bereavement Care
This book is an important contribution to our understanding of how children experience bereavement and how they can and should be supported, both in the short and long term. It will be a particularly valuable resource for any professional working with bereaved children, especially within the school setting, or for anyone wishing to develop a greater understanding of the area of childhood bereavement or, indeed, for any practitioner wishing to conduct their own research in this area.
British Journal of Educational Psychology
The book is easy to read with a common-sense approach to the subject. There is a logical sequence to the chapters, the sections within these and it is equally good either to dip into or read through. It would make a good reference book for every school and be an especially useful starting point for teachers in those schools where immigrant children are trying to settle while dealing with the often unacknowledged loss and change in their lives.
Mortality
Holland, a psychologist and researcher, offers a revised childhood model of loss around the meaning of the death of a parent. The authors examines funerals and significant rituals, especially as given meaning by children, the transition back to school, and effective communication.
Resources Hotline ( The World Pastoral Care Center)
John Holland is a chartered educational psychologist with a senior practitioner role in parenting with North Yorkshire County Council. John also has an independent private practice, including being a trainer and consultant in the area of children, bereavement and loss, this after previous roles in education as a special educational needs peripatetic teacher and as an infant teacher and special needs coordinator in schools.