Back to School: Why Grief Support Belongs in Our Schools
For most young people, September means new timetables, new teachers, seeing friends again and settling back into school life.
But for a young person who is grieving, returning to school can bring something else too: the challenge of carrying their grief back into a busy classroom where life appears to be carrying on as normal.
Grief doesn't disappear at the school gates.
Many young people return after the death of someone important carrying emotions they struggle to explain. They may worry about upsetting family members by talking about how they feel. Friends may not know what to say. And while teachers want to help, schools don't always have the time, confidence or resources to provide the support a bereaved young person needs.
That's why we created Guide Me.
Creating space for grief in schools
Guide Me is a 12-week programme that brings bereaved young people together in a safe, creative and supportive space.
Through conversation, creativity and shared experience, young people explore their grief, develop practical ways to care for themselves and discover something incredibly important: they are not alone.
One young person told us:
"You are allowed to feel and be exactly as you are because that is your experience and no one else's."
But Guide Me doesn't stop with supporting the young people taking part.
Turning grief into compassion
Throughout the programme, our Guides use what they have learned to help make their wider school communities more understanding of grief.
Last year, young people created compassion stalls, delivered assemblies, organised commemorative football matches and even developed a Formula One simulator event where pupils raced in memory of someone important to them.
Through projects like these, 52 young people directly supported by Guide Me went on to reach 1,056 other young people across their schools.
They created opportunities for conversations about grief, loneliness and belonging that might otherwise never have happened.
That's what a compassionate school can look like. Not a school where grief disappears, but one where young people don't feel they have to face it alone.
What difference did Guide Me make?
Last academic year, Guide Me 52 bereaved young people completed our therapeutic groups across six schools.
Young people experienced:
62% increase in self-compassion
58% increase in feeling connected and less alone
50% increase in the quality of relationships
48% increase in their ability and willingness to help others through loss
44% increase in confidence to share their experiences of grief
And nine out of ten said they would recommend Guide Me to another grieving young person.
These numbers matter because behind every percentage is a young person finding language for what they're experiencing, connecting with someone who understands or feeling more able to ask for help.
A new school year. An opportunity to do more.
As pupils return to classrooms this September, we're thinking about the young people arriving at school carrying grief with them.
We want to bring Guide Me to more schools, support more bereaved young people and help create school communities where talking about loss feels possible.
Because grief is part of young people's lives and it needs to be something we can talk about at school too.
Interested in Guide Me, supporting the programme or helping us bring it to more schools? We'd love to hear from you. Contact Caroline caroline.k@apartofme.app
