“I think Support After Suicide is actually participant centred in a way that many other organisations don’t dare to do”, volunteer and counselling placement student Kiara Lindsay shares. “It is such a rare thing to be able to speak so specifically to suicide bereavement in a program that is also free and very flexible”.
It is this participant centred approach that led Kiara, alongside Ash Power, a fellow volunteer and social work placement student, to develop and deliver the new Teen Group program with Support After Suicide. They were supported in this by the Support After Suicide counselling team.
With a growing number of teens wanting support after the loss of a loved one to suicide, Support After Suicide, a program of Jesuit Social Services, identified a gap in their peer support groups.
“There’s nowhere that bereaved teens can have their own space where they can let go of their family responsibilities and can be understood and supported by themselves and with their peers”, Kiara and Ash shared. Tasked with developing a program for teenagers as part of their final year placements with Support After Suicide, they asked, “What can we do to create a safe space for them?”
Kiara and Ash decided on establishing a Teen Group, a regular three-hour session in the school holidays, that could sit alongside the Serious Fun program for children and the coffee morning for parents and carers. It means that a family with young children and teens can all get peer support, suitable for their age group, whilst their parents and carers can also access peer support and connection over a coffee, at the same time
“So many of the available mental health resources for teenagers are just telling them what to do. I think so much of learning how to care for yourself is finding meaning in caring for yourself, and it can feel impossible to do that when you're bereaved by suicide.”
Co-facilitator of Support After Suicide's Teen Group
For the first session, under the theme of self-care and caring for yourself through grief, Kiara and Ash wanted to offer a range of activities to find out what the teen participants responded to. They included a candle lighting to begin, followed by self-guided art, sharing knowledge around how grief affects our bodies, and creating a space for open discussion and sharing.
Ash and Kiara also developed a workbook and resource kit that the teens could take away with them in between sessions. “In the workbook, there are activities that you can do to take care of yourself”, Ash explains. “It helps to reinforce the skill building and capacity building aspects of what you might get with counselling or from doing group work, but being able to do it more independently.”
Whilst Kiara and Ash have completed their student placement with the Support After Suicide, they continue to facilitate the Teen Group each school holidays, alongside a counsellor from the program.
Ash reflected after the first Teen Group, “It was really lovely and collaborative, being in that space to explore, both for us as facilitators, and for participants as well. You could really feel the comfort for everyone throughout the three hours.”
For Kiara, it was the response from a participant who didn’t share much and was asked what they would be taking away from the group. “They said knowledge”, Kiara shared, “and I thought wow, that’s really great”.
