Working with children who experience the death of a parent : the mental health professionals’ perspective

Abstract

This study aimed to explore the perspectives of mental health professionals with regards to the work involved with children aged less than ten who experience the death of a parent. The perspectives aid in the understanding regarding the children’s day-to-day life, the challenges they encountered and support required after experiencing parental loss. One-to-one, semi-structured interviews were conducted with six professionals working in the mental health field, using purposive sampling. No salient characteristics were incorporated. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the information generated from the interviews, from which themes were elicited. The emergent findings suggested that the children’s backgrounds, chronological age and psychological development are key factors considered by the interviewed professionals when interpreting the understanding, meaning and process of death for children in their work and consequently in developing strategies to deal with such. The professionals also suggested that they take into account the support available from the children’s context, including spiritually, at schools and within their families, in their practices. Such findings speculate about practice, policy and interventions which can be adopted by mental health professionals and others working with young children who experience parental loss.