“Death Education” at School for Counselors Who Work in Elementary School

Abstract

In this study, it was aimed to examine counsellors’ perceived competence, about providing help to children who have faced with death, loss and mourning, before the “death education” and how the new information they acquired reflected to their perceptions of competence. This is a qualitative study based on phenomenological design. The participant group consisted of 14 voluntary counsellors who participated in the seminar titled as “Death Education in Schools” which was prepared and presented by the researchers in line with the literature and the field experience in the spring term of 2016-2017 academic year. The data of the study were collected by semi-structured interviews from the participants before and after the “death education” seminar. Data analysis was performed by inductive content analysis. The findings of the analysis were structured under the themes as “professional inadequacy”, “beliefs about children's perceptions of death”, “personal feelings“, and “attitude towards giving ‘death education’ at school”. The themes occurred as a result of this study are thought to contribute to the field in developing and presenting more comprehensive programs.

Keywords

• Death education
• loss and grief
• counselor
• children