Strengthening grief support for adolescents coping with a peer’s death

Abstract

This article offers suggestions for strengthening school-based grief support following an adolescent’s death. Such interventions must be considered within the context of: (a) development during adolescence; (b) the role of peers in adolescent development; and (c) the fact that an adolescent peer’s death is a non-normative life crisis in developed countries. Review of those three topics leads to an overview of death during adolescence; an exploration of adolescent bereavement, grief, and mourning; consideration of disenfranchised grief in relation to an adolescent peer’s death; and an integration of this foundational knowledge in supporting bereaved adolescents within a school setting.