The 'Developing Confident Life Stories' programme explored the impact of bereavement on young people aged 12–18 years, supporting them to construct and represent their bereavement stories through the medium of comics, through a series of creative workshops. Bereavement is a common childhood experience: more than 75% of young people have experienced the death of someone close and this is higher for vulnerable children. Bereavement may have short and long-term impacts on a child's wellbeing, including psychological health and educational achievement. Recent Scottish policy emphasises developing discourse and support around bereavement: yet, a culture of not talking about the issue remains. Comics are an ideal medium for storytelling as the combination of image and text generates creative responses to physical and mental health issues. The process of creating and reading comics helps generate confident life stories: a key component in building resilience.
The programme brought together a multidisciplinary team, and directly involved young people from different backgrounds who have experienced bereavement. Programme’s objectives included:
- To provide a platform to bring forth the lived experiences of young people who have experienced bereavement to inform what meaningful support and care for bereavement should be.
- To facilitate knowledge exchange among academics, health and social care professionals, education and third sector practitioners, and policy and decision makers.
- To consolidate the insights generated through creative engagement across the interactive seminars to identify research, practice and policy priorities.
Image reproduced with generous permission of the author: Shaun Tan. 'The Red Tree'. Lothian, 2001.