Rethinking Care and Support for Grieving Children – 29 April

This workshop will expand your expertise in knowing how to care for and support grieving children – here’s the critical bit – in a way that the children can experience as caring and supportive. Learn key findings of Shelley’s recent research in which she explored the care and support experiences of grieving children aged 6 to 13 years following the suicide of someone close to them. Hear what the children experienced as helpful, unhelpful and described as ‘ideal’ care and support, at home, at school and in counselling.

Gain new knowledge on what it means to a grieving child to be cared for and supported; knowledge which may challenge the way you currently view and care for grieving children. Learn a new approach to supporting grieving children; matter-reinforcing care. Understand the critical role of mattering in care and support, the key principles of mattering-reinforcing care, why this approach is recommended, and importantly, identify ways to incorporate a mattering-reinforcing approach into your own practice or work with grieving children.

Teachers, counsellors, social workers, youth workers and other caring professionals who work with children, increasingly find themselves needing to support children who are grieving. Yet not all professionals feel comfortable or confident in their ability to offer support in a way that the children can experience as being caring and supportive. In reality, a lot of professionals end up supporting grieving children based on their own assumptions about what will be most helpful for the child, rather than an understanding of the child’s actual support needs. This means that there is often a mismatch between the support needed and the support provided.

This workshop will equip participants with a new approach to caring for and supporting grieving children that will enable them to provide support based on children’s actual rather than assumed needs, and in a way that children will experience care as something done with them, rather than to them.

When: 29 April 2025, 9am – 1pm

Where: Online via Zoom

Cost: $250.00 inc GST. The price stated is per person.

Contact:  Feona Horrex – [email protected] / 027 204 0425

For more information and to register – please visit the website:

https://www.grow.co.nz/rethinking-care-and-support-for-grieving-children/