How Children Experience the Outcomes of a Family-Based Grief Intervention - "Losing Someone Like This is a Downer. But You're Not Alone and We Will Get Through it".

Abstract

This study explored the experiences of children and their surviving parent regarding their outcomes after participating in a Danish combined family and group grief intervention for parental bereavement. Semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted post counselling with six boys and six girls aged 9-15 years and their remaining parent. The families described six grief-related outcomes: improved mood connected with social re-engagement, acquiring a language for grief-related experiences; accepting and managing emotions connected to the loss; accepting the brutality of parental loss; shifting from avoidance to thinking about the deceased parent; and establishing a new family dynamic. The study's significance lies in its focus on the voices of children and parents, capturing their lived experiences of a family orientated grief intervention in their own words, and offering insights into the changes they experienced. All outcomes underscored that an intervention for parentally bereaved children must be fundamentally family orientated.