A World That Recognises, Validates, and Supports Young People's Grief: A Co-Designed Study

Abstract

Introduction

Grief in young people is a public health challenge, yet little is known about adolescents' and young adults' views on grief support. Young people with lived experience of grief co-designed all aspects of the project.

Methods

Via a youth-led design, we engaged a Youth Advisory Committee and conducted 10 workshops with 42 young people aged 14–24 years (M_age = 20.3, SD = 3.0) where they were asked about their views on grief literacy and to create scenarios to depict a grief literate world.

Results

Thematic analysis was used to develop five themes about the importance, definition, components, and examples of grief literacy, and how to disseminate grief literacy.

Conclusions

For young people, grief literacy means knowing about grief, showing support to grieving people, and being caring and compassionate to themselves and others. Findings show a range of losses is important to young people such as the death of a close person or pet, parents' divorce, job loss, life transitions, relationship break-ups, identity changes, and world crises. Young people want to be listened to and have their grief normalised and validated. They do not like outdated ideas about stages of grief, clichés, and unsolicited advice.

So What?

Working with young people helped us to understand that young people want structured ways to learn about grief, including how to talk about it, ways to get support, how to help a grieving peer, and how to feel less isolated and alone. These findings are important to create a world that recognises, validates, and supports young people's grief.