Substantive research indicates that 37 to 44% of college students report the death of someone important to them (i.e., family member or close friend) in the prior 2-year period (Cousins, Servaty-Seib, & Lockman, 2017; Cox, Dean, & Kowalski, 2015). Yet, few institutions in the United States offer bereavement leave policies for students that…

Background: Bereaved children often struggle in the school environment and school personnel often feel inadequately prepared to support them. This pilot study explored the experiences and opinions of school staff regarding approaches to addressing the needs of bereaved students in the classroom. Methods: Teachers/school personnel (N = 29)…

This article considers the difficulty of implementing change in a university workplace and discusses the popularity of 'the Valley of Despair' change curve as a way of predicting and managing resistance to change. The Valley of Despair is based on Elisabeth Kübler-Ross's (1970; 2005) work with the dying and bereaved, and posits that people going…

Background: Illness and death are part of life for everyone, including people with intellectual disabilities. This study investigated the extent to which staff communicate about death with people with intellectual disability facing terminal illness or bereavement. Method: Staff who support people with intellectual disability in the UK (n = 690)…

In the UK, approximately 1 in 29 children have experienced the death of a parent or sibling. It is argued that schools are suitably positioned to provide support to bereaved children. However, there is a gap in research exploring bereavement support provision (BSP) in primary schools. This paper presents the qualitative phase of a mixed-methods…

Objective: This article offers a framework to guide schools in developing a compassionate culture. Using a social constructionist/critical perspective, five spheres of work are identified to help schools achieve this goal. Framing death, dying and bereavement from a health promoting perspective, they involve challenging current cultural…

Background: Bereavement is a universal experience, yet little research has explored the lived experience of bereavement for people with learning disability (PWLD). Materials and methods: Four PWLD were interviewed about their experience of bereavement. Data were analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. Results: Four themes were…

This mixed-method Writing-for-wellbeing pilot study used a pre-post-follow-up design with 20 adults in two groups (10 in a bereaved group and 10 in a non-death/living losses group) to assess the feasibility, acceptability, and potential efficacy of a longitudinal writing intervention in helping participants to work through their grief.…

Introduction: Like the broader population, people with intellectual disability (ID) experience the process of grief after loss of a loved one. However, there are a series of risk factors characteristic of this population that can hinder the development of adaptive grief, including cognitive and affective aspects. The objective of this study was to…

Using a mixed-methods approach, we examined how grieving college students perceived the effectiveness, benefits, drawbacks, and areas of improvement of a student bereavement leave policy, Grief Absence Policy for Students (GAPS). Though GAPS facilitated students' grief, data indicated that the policy could benefit from improvements in the…

Background: This paper considers the challenges regarding the development and use of self-report tools for sensitive, personal topics, in this case experiences of death and bereavement for individuals with intellectual disabilities (ID). These challenges are represented through the experience of the development of a self-report measure of…

Dr. Joanne Cacciatore is a research professor at Arizona State University, a bereavement educator, and the founder of the MISS Foundation. Her research focuses on traumatic grief and loss. In this interview, Dr. Cacciatore offers her thoughts on grief, some misconceptions, and her notion of fierce compassion. The interviewers and Dr. Cacciatore…

Background: Historically, people with intellectual disabilities have tended to be excluded from knowing about death, dying and bereavement. Staff in intellectual disability services can play a valuable role in improving understanding of these issues in those they support. This qualitative metasynthesis aimed to understand the experiences of staff…

This interview-based article about Hubert Hermans, founder of The Dialogical Self Theory (DST), was intended to determine the founder's personal relationship to the construction and development of his theory and to provide a portrait of the engaged scientist and vulnerable researcher at work. DST lends itself to interdisciplinary research and…

Therapeutic interventions for bereavement in Northern Ireland and in the Sub-Saharan African country of Uganda are compared. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with Ugandan (n = 18) and Northern Irish (n = 20) therapists. These were thematically analysed. The findings focused on: the counselling context, the characteristics of counsellors,…