 Tip of the Week:
Memorial Events (or Life Tributes)
Often after a student death, staff may question the need for or appropriateness of having an all-school gathering to hold a Life Tribute. Sometimes we're afraid it is making too big of a deal about it. Other times we think that if the kids can go to the funeral, that will serve the same function for them. Well, think again!
When families design the funeral, it becomes their statement of the meaning of their child's death. But when students gather together and create a Life Tribute, it actually is a profound effect in helping the student body "turn the corner" and bring closure to the school's formal period of grief. This is not to say that the close friends will not continue to have their own grief, but it is immensely helpful to have some demarcation when it really IS OK to laugh and feel a lessening of the heaviness of grief.
Holding the Life Tribute the morning after the funeral works well because students are no longer dreading the funeral, so this really can bring greater closure. This allows a natural time for any visual "stuff" that has manifested to be taken down (roses that were taped to the locker, letters or pictures on bulletin boards related to the loss, whatever). And it is by far most effective when the students write what will be said (all that is said is screened by adults and students agree to stick to the script) because they can then feel that they really did all they could. They didn't just sit and listen to adults talk, but they created their own expression of the meaning of their deceased friend's life.
The greatest concern seems to be whether students will behave, but I'm amazed that students almost always rise to the occasion beyond our expectations. My goal is for schools to include the entire student body so that those who are not grieving learn lessons of empathy and that we teach all students that they are expected to be respectful of ALL other students, the deceased as well as all friends who are speaking at the Tribute, whether they are popular or not. This kind of message is what begins to change school climate - that every single student is "one of our school community, and when any one of us dies, we will all take a few minutes to respectfully acknowledge that every student is a part of the history and legacy of XXX school."
The schools to which I'm called back repeatedly because a group of students just can't seem to "get over" a death and begin to move on are almost always schools that don't do enough during the week of the death, and most often the Life Tribute or Memorial Event is what was missing. The Crisis Resource Manual has a section on this.
Cheri
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