Loss, Transition, Bereavement and Change

Supporting Looked-After Children Through Grief and Bereavement

A compassionate, evidence-based guide to helping children in care navigate cumulative loss, grief, and emotional displacement.

Loss, transition, and change are rarely one-off events for looked-after children. From family separation and placement moves to bereavement and broken relationships, the cumulative weight of these losses deeply shapes how young people feel, think, and behave.

This comprehensive course bridges psychological theory and frontline practice. It equips foster carers, kinship carers, residential staff, and social workers with the deep understanding and practical toolkits needed to recognise grief in all its forms, de-escalate grief-driven behaviour, and act as a steady anchor during times of emotional upheaval.

Key Learning Highlights

• Understand Cumulative & Disenfranchised Loss: Explore how family separation, loss of community, ambiguous loss, and bereavement interact to create unique, layered grief for looked-after children.
• Developmental Expressions of Grief: Recognise how children process and revisit loss across different developmental stages, from toddlers to adolescents.
• Applied Psychological Models: Utilise proven frameworks such as Kübler-Ross’s Stages, Worden’s Tasks of Mourning, the Dual Process Model, and Continuing Bonds Theory to guide practice.
• Practical Support Toolkits: Master actionable interventions including Life Story Work, Memory Boxes, Bibliotherapy, therapeutic play, and direct, clear communication techniques.
• Decode Grief-Driven Behaviour: Shift your perspective to see aggression, withdrawal, clinginess, or defiance as unspoken grief, applying sensory co-regulation techniques to restore Calm.
• The SPACE Framework: Embed a grief-friendly culture at home using Safety, Presence, Attunement, Curiosity, and Empathy.
• Carer Resilience & Self-Care: Identify signs of secondary traumatic stress, compassion fatigue, and vicarious trauma, establishing healthy boundaries to ensure long-term practice sustainability.

Why Choose This Course?

Designed to be compassionate in tone yet rigorous in content, this course shifts practice from attempting to “fix” grief to patiently bearing witness to it. It offers clear, non-jargon guidance and signposts key UK specialist support networks (such as Child Bereavement UK, Winston’s Wish, and CAMHS pathways) to ensure no carer or child has to navigate loss alone.

Who Should Attend: Foster Carers, Kinship Carers, Residential Care Workers, Supervising Social Workers, and Children’s Social Care Practitioners.