Professionals Hub

Offering support and training to professionals

Living On believes in working collaboratively to support bereaved children and young people. We give advice, support and training (please see training information) to professionals. This support and advice can vary. Often professionals just need a sounding board or some reassurance that what they are doing is OK. We are here to reassure and guide you when someone has died in the school community whether that is a child, parent or teacher.

Some of the support we offer is:

Telephone advice and support
Providing resources to support your work
Help to create a bereavement policy
Offer teacher supervision/reflective sessions if a child or colleague has died
Work alongside staff to support a child in their grief
To work alongside the SLT when a child dies in thinking about communication and short and long term support

“(The training) was delivered just right, they followed what the staff want to discuss. They were very understanding and gave us lots of information and strategies. This is an amazing service and well needed.”

Training For Schools

“It helped me to be able to get some things off my chest and see that others were finding it tricky as well.”

Training For Schools

“It’s definitely made me feel more confident in dealing with potential bereavement…the information provided was great.”

Training For Schools

“We learned how to support bereaved families with different strategies to support the family and sign posted where to get resources and support from.”

Training For Schools

“Clear and concise…Gave me confidence to deal with bereavement in class.”

Training For Schools

Any professional can refer to living on – please complete our referral form and send back to us at referrals@livingon.org.uk Please make sure you have permission from the parent/guardian to do this referral. We would be happy to discuss a referral with you in advance of receiving your form.

You can self-refer but if you are under 16 we will need a parent/carers consent before we can offer any intervention.

Once we receive a referral form we will contact you via telephone or email to think about the next steps which is usually to arrange an initial visit with one of the Family Support Workers.

We provide a variety of courses all of which are tailored to fit a half day or full day training package. Please note that the full day programmes will contain more practical ways to work with children and their families.

If you are supporting a bereaved child/family and feel you would like some advice around this specific situation, one of our trained volunteers can arrange to visit you and offer free support and advice.

Supporting Bereaved children and their families

For professionals working with bereaved families

This course outlines what it might be like for a bereaved family and introduces some theory and research around bereavement. It looks at what children and young people understand about death and dying and ways in which professionals can talk to families and children about death and dying. Creating a bereavement policy for your organisation is also covered.

Supporting children and families when someone has a life threatening illness

For professionals working with families

This course outlines what it might be like for a child when someone in the family is suffering from a terminal illness. It will look at the difficult conversations that you may engage in and how to support families throughout the illness. It explores ways to talk about dying and death with children and families.

Complex and traumatic death and suicide in families

For professionals working with families

This course discusses what is complex and traumatic death and asks how is it different for families? It also looks at the effects on a family and community of death by suicide. We explore ways to support families through traumatic deaths and cover the implications of police involvement, an inquest and the press.

Practical ways to support bereaved children and young people

For professionals working with families

This course introduces and demonstrates some practical activities that can support bereaved children. Different methods for collecting memories are studied and how to put in place coping strategies for children and young people to support them in their bereavement. The importance of telling their story is looked at and the various ways in which they can do this.

We can also tailor our training to your requirements and needs. For more information and rates, please contact us at familysupport@livingon.org.uk

Referring to our friendly and experienced team…

If you would like to self refer yourself to our services, click on the button below to fill out our self referral form:

Self Refer to Living On Bereavement Service

If you are a professional wishing to refer a child, click on the button below to fill out our professionals referral form:

Reffer a child to Living On Bereavement Service