Parenting Positively: Coping with Death – Baranados/Family Support Agency

This booklet is for parents or carers of children between the ages of 6 and 12. It aims to give some explanation of how children at various stages of development understand death and will help those who are faced with the difficult task of talking to children about death and dying.

Death is an inevitable part of life and grief is a universal human process. We cannot shield children from  the reality of death or the pain of loss. What we can do is help them to understand and grieve, and so equip them to be better able to cope

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Guide to Coping with Christmas – The Compassionate Friends

This useful guide aims to support parents who have lost a child.

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When Someone Dies: Practical and Emotional Help at a Difficult Time

This booklet from Marie Curie provides an overview of the practical and emotional issues that may come up when someone close to you dies. It’s split into sections so you can easily find the information that you need at a time that’s right for you.

Click here to access the booklet


Anam Cara:  Supporting Parents after Bereavement

A range of booklets in pdf format from Anam Cara, providing bereaved parents with guidance. Click titles below to view.

A Dad’s Grief: What helped us

A Mother’s Grief: What helped us

Self Care: How Can it Help

Supporting my Family

Coping with the Sudden Death of Your Child

Milestones and Challenges

Adults Grieving the Death of a Brother or Sister


     The Final Journey Reflective Memoir

 ‘The Final Journey’ Reflective Memoir has been created by Sabina Mason, who worked as a nurse within an Intensive Care Unit. The memoir is designed for people to write about their experience of someone close to them dying. The end of life is a traumatic experience and grieving is a highly individual experience; there’s no right or wrong way to grieve. Inevitably, the grieving process and healing process takes time.  The memoir journal is used to bridge the gap between your  loss   and how they are feeling right now. Did you make sense of the death or loss at the time?” and “How do you interpret the loss now?”

  As writer Tara DaPra eloquently observes in her essay “Writing Memoir and Writing for Therapy:”

  “Perhaps the only recompense for tragedy—for death and loss of innocence—is the chance to create some measure of beauty. The marvel of a well-crafted sentence—finding just the right diction and syntax  —is a small     triumph over pain, a way to create order in the world.”

 Inside the memoir journal a photo can be inserted and through writing about your feelings it will guide you to answer some questions you might have.  You will find poems, as it can also offer a way of coming to terms with your loss. People can write to their deceased loved ones in total privacy, or opt to share their writing with family and close friends.

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