This Grief Awareness Week, we’re spotlighting the powerful role Music Therapy can play in supporting young people navigating loss and grief, like this recent project led by our Music Therapists Gabrielle and Kasia.

Did you know that, on average, 1 of every 29 children, the equivalent of one in every class,  will be bereaved of a parent? This statistic, albeit eye opening, does not even include bereavement of any other significant individuals in a child’s life. 

Regardless of this frequency, most teachers will not receive any extra training or learning opportunities when it comes to supporting grieving young people. 

Short term Music Therapy Projects, such as one run facilitated by our Music Therapists Gabrielle and Kasia, play a vital role in bridging this gap.  

During their project, Gabrielle and Kasia worked with a year 10 class in a special needs secondary school who had suddenly lost a beloved class member and a longstanding member of the school staff. This work was done over two sessions, spaced a few weeks apart, to allow time for the participants to continue to process their emotions. 

Whole group and small group activities were included in these sessions, to make space for group and individual support. The activities used a range of creative approaches including art based ideas (drawing, and building a model), music listening and discussion, improvisation, song writing. Throughout, the students were encouraged to take part as much or as little as they felt able to. 

From the first session, it was noticeable how quickly many of them felt able to join in and share their memories. This continued in the second session, as observed by Gabrielle: 

“When we returned for the second day most students remembered us and remembered the activities we had done together and were immediately prepared to join in from the beginning of the session.  There was a thread between the two sessions and we could build on some activities from session 1 and think about the transitions in feelings that  we experience whilst we are grieving.”

At the end of the project, the students were given the opportunity to share three words that they felt reflected the time spent together. Words offered included, “ engaging, relaxing, memory-provoking” and “special, joyful, safe”. One student spontaneously offered their own feedback, describing the workshops as:  “happiness, intense, thinking of [classmate]...”

It is important to note this project needed two Music Therapists to ensure that the students felt safe, supported, and held, as there was not an available school counsellor available to co-lead with an individual Music Therapist. Whilst this was primarily focussed on the children, the staff had also experienced sudden loss and this process allowed them to be involved and supported to some extent, whilst acknowledging that they still need to support the students first and foremost.

Generally,  work in this area is focused over a short term span, and can be curated specifically for particular groups, for example, a short project for bereaved siblings for example, or to support students around key transitions, with some focussed sessions. This can exist separately to any work being carried out by any Music Therapist already in the school.

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