student with terminally-ill parent

Specialties School

Published

Any ideas for good resources, both for the family and the class as a whole? Child is only 3 1/2.....I contacted the school the older sibs attend to see if their social worker would work with me to make a plan for all the kids (we have no mental health support at my school, so I'm it).

In the past, I have used the books "Everett Anderson's Good-Bye" (which might work for this age) as well as "The Fall of Freddie the Leaf". Would love any other thoughts/ideas.

Thanks for the help.

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Specializes in Hospice Nursing.

Is the parent on hospice services? If so, they may provide bereavement services to the children and support to the school

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Specializes in Community Health/School Nursing.
Is the parent on hospice services? If so, they may provide bereavement services to the children and support to the school

So true! Hospice provides so much more than just the care for the patient. You would be amazed at what they do offer family members.

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Specializes in school nursing, ortho, trauma.

I would team up with your guidance department too. This is a big undertaking for the nurse to have to face alone and the guidance dept may have recources at their fingertips (sometimes social workers aren't quite as connected to this type of thing depending on the school/ district, believe it or not).

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I am just glad you care enough to help. My dad became terminal when I was about 2nd grade and died the summer before I entered 7th grade. Through all that time the school(s) couldn't have cared less.

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We have no guidance dept.....I'm pretty much it.....The parent died last night. The family is out of state for a week for the funeral, etc, so we have some time to figure out our school's response.

Thank you for the help and advice.

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Specializes in School Nursing, Public Health, Home Care.

this won't help you with the immediate, but I have let teachers know that a student's parent died for several years after the death.

Your school may be such that everyone will know but with staff changes, etc, teachers usually are glad to know this kind of thing.

Good luck with this, I would feel a little over my head if it was me.

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Specializes in School nursing.

This is hard to plan a good response to. This link might be helpful: http://www.petersplaceonline.org/resources_27_2723462710.pdf.

We recently had a student lose a sibling to an act of violence. It has been very hard on the student and the school community. We are lucky that we have a counselor to help handle these things and the counselor did put together a plan after speaking with student and family based on student's frame of mind and wishes. I hope you can use the student's social worker as a resource in making this plan so that student's grief process is respected.

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Specializes in kids.
This is hard to plan a good response to. This link might be helpful: http://www.petersplaceonline.org/resources_27_2723462710.pdf.

We recently had a student lose a sibling to an act of violence. It has been very hard on the student and the school community. We are lucky that we have a counselor to help handle these things and the counselor did put together a plan after speaking with student and family based on student's frame of mind and wishes. I hope you can use the student's social worker as a resource in making this plan so that student's grief process is respected.

I'm so sorry....the fallout from that can be tremendous.

NAMI is also another tremendous organization that may help you find more local resources within your state or municipality.

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Specializes in School Nursing, Hospice,Med-Surg.

Thank you for this link and the NAMI info. I have a terminally ill parent at my school also and expect to use these this year.

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