The master's thesis discusses the process of grieving of adolescents who are currently placed in educational institutions. Two perspectives are presented - the perspective of adolescents and the perspective of educators. The adolescents’ perspective focuses mainly on their lives and experiences, which they perceive as difficult, and on recognizing the grieving process in themselves, while the educators’ perspective includes their observations and response to adolescents’ grief.
Any grieving experience is difficult and grieving is not just a process after the loss of an important person, therefore the purpose of this empirical work is to present the diverse experiences, losses, and changes in the lives of adolescents placed in educational institutions. I was interested in how adolescents perceive their own grieving process and how they connect it to their own experiences, how they view the process today and what helped them getting through it, with a particular focus on the help they received from educators. I pay special attention to the placement in an educational institution as an important turning point in a young person's life, as this can also trigger the grieving process, and the experience is common to all those placed. Moreover, I was interested in how the educators in the educational institutions view the grieving adolescents, how they recognize the process and how they respond to it.
In the theoretical part, I present the educational institutions, emotional and behavioural problems, then I focus on the grieving process itself, its characteristics and specifics when it comes to adolescents. I conclude with important aspects of help and support in working with grieving adolescents and also mention some concrete methods that can be used by educators in their work.
The research was conducted with a qualitative research approach. The sample included 10 people, 6 of whom were adolescents and 4 were educators in an educational institution.
The research showed that adolescents grieve for different things, depending on their value system. The grieving triggers range from the death of people and animals to divorce and consequent loss of a relationship with one of the parents, loss of friendships, various changes in the environment, including placement in an educational institution, to loss of health and safety. The main findings show that adolescents accepted their placement in an educational institution rather positively, as they saw the change as an opportunity for a new beginning, with educators playing a major role. The key of the educators' support in the grieving process is seen by both the adolescent group and the group of educators in building a relationship between them, in trust and acceptance. The recognition of grieving and the discovery of triggers by educators is conditioned by the relationship with the adolescents, knowledge of their story, and a formed connection between them. The fact that educators were there for them, that someone listened to them and expressed a sincere interest in their story, and in addition, did not condemn and evaluate them, helped the adolescents with their painful losses. All interviewees share an awareness of grieving as a process that occurs not only after death but after various losses.
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