Children, Teenagers | Talking about Death & Grief

This page is a collection of relevant resources to support conversations with children and teenagers around Death, Dying, and Grief.

Being able to talk about loss and grief with young people is important, this is further highlighted by the frequency of coronavirus in the news.

Our research shows that most Australian adults are not comfortable talking about loss with a young person, and yet most of us experience the death of someone close to us before we turn 16. This webinar explores effective ways to communicate around grief with young people and help to bolster them with resilience and compassion.

Listen in to our conversation from Dying to Know Day 2020 with Megan Daley, Teacher Librarian of Children's Books Daily, and Elham Day, Death Care Worker and Grief Advocate at Hummingbird House.

Podcasts | Books | Resources

A podcast titled ‘Parting’ About grief, death and dying - and led by young people so the stories and conversations are open and entertaining way with a clear, simple message; it is ok to talk about grief.

Megan’s Books on Grief (mentioned in the webinar above)

Hummingbird House (mentioned in the webinar above)

Talking to children about death and grief: Sesame street

LifeTimes - book on how to talk with children about death

Wings of Hope Children, Teens and Suicide Loss

‘A Gift Before I Go’ is a children’s book that addresses the topic of death and organ donation, while shining a light on the gift of life. This book was written as a tool to assist parents with this difficult conversation.

Schools Microgrant Project 2020 + 2021 - Activating conversations around loss, grief and compassion.

Talking about end of life is important for everyone, especially our young people. Our research shows that most adults do not feel comfortable talking to young people about death and dying, even though majority of us will experience the death of someone close to us before we turn 16.

How do we change the conversation?

We had over 20 applications for the 2021 grant round and have now selected 7 schools across the country to receive a monetary grant of $2500 to help develop creative ways to encourage compassion and kindness when it comes to death and loss. This might be inspired by an experience someone in the school community has faced, it could be responding to environmental loss or it might be a way to extend beyond the walls of the school and show kindness and compassion to another part of the local community.

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The 7 school groups represent a diverse mix of socio-economic areas across 6 states and territories and each have shown their existing strengths as a school community.
We look forward to showing their progress throughout the year.

“The project provided the opportunity for students to have the allocated time, space, group environment for a group of students to explore issues around grief and loss. Students were able to openly reflect, explore, share and discuss loss they have experienced in their life. Over the 8 weeks of the program, students journeyed together in planting some of these experienced losses, letting go and moving toward new growth. ”

— School Facilitator, 2020 round

Thanks to Good Pitch and the Documentary Australia Foundation who have supported this project.

In 2020 and 2021 we invited submissions from schools across the country for a monetary grant to help encourage conversations in their school around loss, grief, and compassion. 

2020 Blog post - July

2021 Blog post - September