Supporting children with parental death: Narratives of emergency, acute and primary care workers

Primary Supervisor: Dr Gill Murphy (opens in a new window)

Childhood parental death is recognized as a life defining event. One in every 20 children are thought to experience the death of a parent prior to 18 years of age.  The death of a parent during childhood is thought to generate high levels of personal distress and worry. Childhood parental death can increase the risks of longer standing mental health concerns, including mood disorders and psychosis for some individuals. There is a growing discourse about the longer standing reduced health and mortality outcomes for adults who experienced childhood parental death. Yet, the experiences and needs of children who experience parental death remain largely unseen. There are inconsistencies in gathering information about the parental status of a person who is dying or deceased. A lack of information about parental status can make it difficult for emergency, health and social care services to offer immediate support to children and to identify those with on-going needs.  There is a paucity of guidelines for emergency, health and social care staff when supporting children with both anticipated and sudden parental death. Given this, the proposed study will seek the narratives of emergency, acute and primary care workers of supporting children prior to, at the time and scene of death, and after parental death.

This work will build on findings from other studies at Western Sydney University in the field of childhood parental death which included a narrative study with adults who experienced childhood parental death and a current study with surviving parents who experienced partner death. This study will seek the narratives of emergency, acute and primary care workers of supporting children prior to, at the time and scene of death, and after parental death. The research will potentially provide information about facilitators and barriers for multi-disciplinary staff when supporting children with anticipated or actual parental death. There is potential to identify areas of policy development, service provision, staff training and staff clinical supervision and support experiences in relation to their work with children that experience parental death.

This project would suit candidates from a range of disciplines who have some experience with qualitative research.