Children’s HIV Mental Support

posted: 27/11/2009

Ways to meet children’s mental health support needs before, during, and after a parent (or other close relative) dies with HIV, are given in a new international review from aidsmap / NAM.

It's written for resource-limited settings, but the how-to advice is excellent for children here and everywhere. Most useful in the UK are sections on ‘addressing grief and bereavement,’ checking for childhood mental health problems, and basic and more advanced ways to support children affected by HIV-related deaths.

A useful overview to helping children cope with death and grief the review recommends is the recently published guide Children’s Palliative Care in Africa, (download the whole book free - the only price to pay is taking part in a quick survey). 

One chapter in this book provides advice about

• making memory boxes (to collect items that remind them of the person who has died and times they shared)
• making a family record to help a child or young person gain a sense of where they and the person who has died fits into the family. This is particularly important when a child is to be removed from their old home, or separated from siblings or cousins, and hence when there is a danger of losing a sense of his or her ‘roots’
• telling the story by helping the child write or tell (with an adult writing) their story so that they remember clearly what happened — which can provide carers an ideal opportunity to pick up misconceptions and misunderstandings
• handprints: a print of their hand and their parents and other loved one’s touching
• writing a “children’s will”: children are sure to have some items that they treasure and they might have a clear idea of what they wish to happen to these
• permanency planning so that children have a clear idea about what will happen to them (if they are bereaved)
• a “bereavement tree” (a practical tool that sensitises people to the feelings and behaviours of individuals and expectations of society, to create awareness about bereavement in order to encourage community support to all bereaved people — there is an appendix with this tool in the book.

The book also highlights the importance of spiritual development (as well as play), and describes a number of beliefs and practices surrounding death in Africa.

Another fine resource

Some other useful resources can be found in the April 2009 issue of Together Now, the newsletter of the International HIV/AIDS Alliance in India, including using art therapy for children and child-centred counselling. The article also usefully describes different mental health screening tools for children.
 

Children’s Palliative Care in Africa

download the whole book free here

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The international review After my parents died: The effect of HIV on the mental health of children: a clinical review

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