Abstract
Social work values client-centered holistic approaches of care, yet there is a lack of approaches addressing spirituality in counselling with children. Children’s spirituality and conceptualization have been disenfranchised. Children’s spiritual experiences, ways of knowing and perceptions are important to attend to when supporting them through an impactful life event such as trauma, grief, or loss (TGL). Parents may not fully understand or have the capacity to attend to their child’s spirituality. Counsellors appear to lack knowledge and training to attend to the spiritual needs and capacities of children. This article offers some research findings of children’s spirituality deemed to be vital for healing from TGL and counselling. It provides an understanding of some of the constructs and isolating processes described by children, parents and counsellors related to children’s spirituality in TGL. It also will present a spiritually sensitive framework specifically attuned to the spiritual dimension and creating spaces of safety and hope when working with children. The implications of not addressing the critical spiritual dimensions in practice for children are discussed, and recommendations for continued research and training for further theoretical development and future social work practice are offered.
Highlights
Counsellors working with children who have experienced trauma, grief, and loss (TGL) will focus on the cognitive, emotional, and physical symptoms and aspects; the spiritual dimension, which can be central to the experience, is often overlooked and disenfranchised
We contend that the spiritual dimension is essential when treating TGL and in facilitating posttraumatic growth (PTG) for children
We argue that it is critical for counsellors to create space for the sacred and be open to the spiritual dimension if they are to apply a holistic counselling approach, whereby children fully engage and typically prefer
Summary
Counsellors working with children who have experienced trauma, grief, and loss (TGL) will focus on the cognitive, emotional, and physical symptoms and aspects; the spiritual dimension, which can be central to the experience, is often overlooked and disenfranchised This dismissal leads to a lack of spiritually sensitive frameworks and treatment strategies that honour and support children’s spirituality in counselling. The results pertaining to the category of weird and taboo and its resultant processes and struggles regarding spirituality are discussed in another manuscript (Boynton 2021), whereas this paper will shed more light on some of the normal and important aspects of children’s spirituality and a framework for counselling We offer this knowledge with the aim of mitigating some of the social constructs and processes found to impede crucial conversations and openness regarding children’s spirituality. We will raise awareness on the importance of situating the child’s spiritual worldview at the centre of the counselling process and highlight the implications of not addressing the spiritual dimension in practice with children
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