[This course will take you about 1 hour to complete.]

Many children and young people will go through grief at some point, as it is a natural part of life. Grief is the process of reacting to a loss, which can be the death of a loved one, or a change in their life. This is particularly relevant to you as a foster carer as it is likely that your foster child may have experienced loss in some form. The act of coming into care itself means that the child has lost the family unit that they had in the past.

Grief can take many forms and it is important to understand what the child may be experiencing and how to support them. In this course, we will explain what the terms bereavement, loss, grief and mourning mean and explore the various emotions that a child may go through. No child will experience loss in the same way and grieving can happen years later. But we will explore this as fully as we can for you to feel more confident in supporting your foster child through a very difficult time in their life.

In this course you will learn:
- What bereavement, grief and mourning are and how they are defined
- Emotions and behaviour during a grieving process
- Attachment issues
- Explaining death to children