What to say to someone when their child has just died? Identifying training needs of social workers bereavement care in a paediatric hospital

1. Introduction Social Workers provide complex bereavement care to the families of children who die at hospital. The setting is unique and challenging in that child deaths may be anticipated or sudden, and Social Workers are with the family at the time of their child’s death or shortly afterwards. Adequate preparation and training of Social Workers is essential to minimise risk to both family and staff wellbeing.
2. Objectives To describe the Social Work role in bereavement care and identify staff training needs.
3. Approach Social Workers volunteered for a working group which met four times over 6 months to describe current bereavement practice and what they wish they had known prior to beginning such work. Our findings informed a detailed model of bereavement care provided by Social Workers in the hospital and, from this, training needs were identified.
4. Practice Implications Within a small group setting complex and nuanced bereavement work can be described and documented in detail, providing a basis for the identification of staff training needs.
5. Conclusions Training needs of new staff can sometimes best be identified by the staff already undertaking the work as they are the experts in a unique setting.

 
For queries please contact Nicola Watt, Senior Social Worker- Tel.93456111