Children's Grief Counselling

Are you worried about how your child is coping with their grief?

I have over 10 years experience in counseling children and adolescents:

• living with a family member diagnosed with a serious and/or life-threatening illness
• bereaved following the death of a parent, sibling or other family member
• diagnosed with a serious and/or life-threatening illness
• living with the ongoing impacts of cancer treatment

When working with a child or adolescent, I adapt my counselling skills and techniques to make them age appropriate and to support the child or young person’s ability to express their thoughts, feelings and experiences. For instance, I may use ‘Feeling Cards’, Art Therapy, or Play Therapy techniques. As with adult therapy, the goal of children's counselling is to help the child or adolescent to explore issues of concern and work to find strategies to improve coping skills or achieve positive change.

I also work closely with parents an carers to answer their questions and to find the best ways for them to communicate with and support their children.

Parents and carers need to be aware that, as with any counselling session, the content of a child's grief counselling session is confidential. In effect this means that I will only share with parents or carers what the child or young person has said in the session with their permission. I encourage the child or young person to share as much as they would like about our sessions with their parent(s). If I have any concerns about the safety of the child, then I will always inform a parent or carer and notify the appropriate agencies.