GRANT
More than 3 million Danish kroner granted by the Independent Research Fund Denmark for a project to help grieving children
Every year, 2,000 children under the age of 18 lose a parent. Young children usually find it difficult to put the grief they are going through into words, so the project is based on the idea that creative and nonverbal means of expression can help the children process the grief.
Associate Professor Eva Knutz from the Department of Design, Media and Educational Science has received 3.094.560 DKK for the project "Co-designing new support practices with young children in grief". The aim of the project is to help the children by designing, testing, and evaluating a dialogue tool that can help children aged 6-10 to cope with grief better.
Every year, 2,000 children under the age of 18 lose a parent, and 144 grief groups have been established in Denmark. There is limited knowledge about young children's grief and support needs, and practitioners in grief groups lack concrete tools whose usefulness has been demonstrated through research-based trials.
Young children usually find it difficult to put their grief and the complex emotions they are going through into words. The project is based on the idea that creative and nonverbal means of expression can help children process their grief. Children and practitioners from grief groups in Tønder Municipality and the National Grief Centre will participate in the development of the dialogue tool and an evaluation study will be conducted. The expected result of the project will be a dialogue tool that can be disseminated to all grief groups in Denmark.
A set of recommendations and a handbook will also be prepared to be used for educational purposes and in the counselling on how to meet young children who have lost a parent.
Meet the researcher
Associate Professor Eva Knutz is a researcher at The Department of Design, Media and Educational Science