Fostering resilience in families in which a parent has died.

Abstract

IRWIN SANDLER, Ph.D., TIM AYERS, Ph.D., AND SHARLENE WOLCHIK, Ph.D., of the Prevention Research Center at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona have designed and run a randomized experimental trial to evaluate the Family Bereavement Program, an intervention for parentally bereaved children and the surviving parent. The program is derived from clinical observations and research showing that loss of a parent is a highly stressful event, which can lead to future mental health problems in the child. Specifically, these researchers note that the death of a parent can lead to further family stressors, which may increase mental health problems of the surviving parent and have a negative effect on the parenting received by the child. This education and support program is designed to build coping skills within children themselves and to promote the parent’s use of healthy and effective parenting skills. For children, the intervention aims to teach problem solving and emotional regulation skills to help them recognize and deal with their feelings as well as the stressful situations that can follow the death of a parent. For parents, the targeted parenting skills include fostering a warm and responsive relationship with the child, maintaining positive routines, and using effective discipline. To achieve these goals, the researchers designed separate courses for parents, children, and adolescents, which take place over twelve consecutive weeks. These sessions include group “homework” so that all family members are developing and practicing dovetailed skills. Sandler, Ayers, and Wolchik report their findings from the experimental evaluation of this group intervention elsewhere.1 Here they focus on the details of what they did, barriers they faced and strategies for overcoming them, as well as how the Family Bereavement Program might be adapted to other nonexperimental settings. What follows are the edited comments from two interviews with Irwin N. Sandler, Ph.D., and Tim S. Ayers, Ph.D., conducted by Innovations Associate Editor Anna L. Romer, Ed.D. This article is excerpted from a thematic issue, “Coping with Loss,” Volume 3, Number 6, 2001 of the online journal Innovations in End-of-Life Care at ,www.edc.org/lastacts.. The online issue includes several excerpts from their training manual, which can be downloaded.