Date of Award
2003
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Education
Department
Programs for Higher Education
Advisor
Daniel Czaplewski
Committee Member
Barbara Packer
Keywords
bereavement, children, classroom interventions, death, death education, fear reduction, Grief Brief, grief, loss, mourning, professional development, referrals, teacher development, teacher training
Abstract
This applied dissertation proposal was designed to help teachers have better skills and expertise for when they are dealing with children who are grieving and have experienced loss in their lives. The teachers for whom the program, “Grief Brief” was designed, suggested they felt as though their lack of training in this area left them without the needed tools for helping the children in their classes.
The writer proposed Grief Brief as a strategy that used brief instructional units over the course of 8 months in order to educate the teachers in various methods having to do with children and grief. Research suggested that most teachers feel ill equipped and unprepared to handle grief as a topic in their classrooms. It is the purpose of this applied dissertation to help bridge the gap between what is not known and what should be known.
The research showed that teachers who have gone through a training program feel more adequately prepared to help grieving children in their classrooms. The research also showed that a conclusive number of teachers feel less fear of dealing with grieving children as a result of their participating in the program. Finally, the results showed that teachers are more willing to deal with grief in their classrooms because they made fewer referrals than prior to the implementation of Grief Brief.