Background Our Family Social Worker started working with schools in February 2023, to help teachers, supporting students pre- and post- bereavement (Mallon. Working with bereaved children and young people. Sage; 2011). Syderhelm (Helping children cope with loss and change: a guide for professionals and parents. Routledge; 2020) identified four unmet needs in the field of childhood loss and bereavement, of which two were:

• Limited awareness amongst professionals about signposting childhood loss/bereavement.

• Confusion about how to develop professional resilience and best practice.

Aim To develop training for educational professionals.

Learning Objectives/Methods

• Raising awareness of young people’s understanding of death and dying.

• Highlighting factors affecting grief.

• Exploring a hands–on programme for young people managing their grief.

• Exploring schools developing bereavement policies fit for their community.

• Promoting local and national child bereavement services.

Learning Objectives/MethodsThe pilot session was offered to secondary schools whilst developing age-appropriate information for primary schools. Once offered to primary schools we received plenty of enquiries.

Results The training signposted to local and national resources. Whilst a local charity was supporting children who lost a parent or sibling, the gaps were pre-bereavement support, and for children bereaved of grandparents. Participation rates were high: 65 participants over 6 workshops from March 2023 to February 2024.

Evaluation showed a significant increase in confidence across the subject area:

• Showed me I can deal with bereavement...

• Learning new activities to do with children…

• I feel more confident…

• Great ideas… that I can use at school…

• Would like more guidance on pre–bereavement.

The training evolved from mainly signposting to confidence-building for educational staff who received a variety of ideas and activities to utilise in their work.

Conclusion We saw benefits in children as they were receiving support from both our hospice team and at school. The profile of the hospice was raised within schools. The training improved the provision of grief services across Milton Keynes.