Tenth International Conference on Health, Wellness & Society

Abstract

In researching how to develop compassionate schools, I have coalesced relevant health promoting palliative care research with school community-based literature. Specifically, I have drawn from Palliative Care Australia which provides a complete and inclusive strategy for bereavement support in many communities (Aoun, Breen, Rumbold, & Howting, 2014) and Kellehear’s ‘Compassionate cities’ concept which focuses on compassion as an imperative in empowering communities and building capacity (Kellehear, 1999). Set within a Western educational context, semi-structured interviews involved students, parents, teachers, and principals from rural primary school communities in central Victoria, Australia. The research criteria stipulated that each participant must have experienced a close bereavement in the last 6 years and that they belonged to a primary school community at that time. In this presentation, I will explore how primary school community members currently engage with death, dying and bereavement by making explicit their assumptions, values and strategies that will empower schools and communities. This presentation will describe overall participant responses which suggest a desired cultural and societal shift in relation to how death, dying and bereavement issues are perceived and currently responded to in primary school communities. Five main theoretical categories from the study emerged including challenging cultural perceptions; creating a culture of support; creating grief informed culture; establishing a culture of reflection and reflexivity and determining a whole school plan. The participants suggest that both perceptual and practical change is desirable to constructively engage with death, dying and bereavement issues.