Why are grief and dying such taboo topics in many societies, particularly if they involve children? And what is ‘grief literacy’?
Grief and dying are among the most underdiscussed topics in society. How does this impact our wellbeing, and does our understanding about grief need to change?
To explore this topic, Sarah is joined by Professor Lauren Breen and Ms Shelly Skinner. Lauren is researcher in Curtin University’s School of Population Health, specialising in the psychology of grief and loss. Lauren’s research is internationally recognised, and she has received a research recognition award from the Association for Death Education and Counselling in the USA, for her significant contribution to studies concerning grief across the lifespan. Shelly is a social worker who specialises in the palliative care of children, and is also the CEO and Founder of a children's bereavement service, Lionheart Camp for Kids.
Professor Lauren Breen is a Curtin University health researcher who is internationally recognised for her research in the psychology of grief and loss.
Ms Shelly Skinner is a social worker who is involved in the palliative care of children. She founded the Lionheart Camp for Kids to help children who have lost people close to them to grieve.
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Sarah Taillier (00:00):
This is The Future Of, where experts share their vision of the future and how their work is helping shape it for the better. I'm Sarah Taillier.
(00:11):
Dying and grieving have been somewhat taboo topics of conversation in Australian society. And in line with this, the help that psychological support can give during bereavement can also be overlooked. To explore this topic, I was joined by Professor Lauren Breen, a researcher in the psychology of grief and loss from Curtin University's School of Population Health. And Shelly Skinner, a social worker specialising in paediatric palliative care and founder of the children's bereavement service, Lionheart Camp for Kids. We discussed the notion of grief literacy, how children can be supported in the grieving process, and issues related to palliative care and the COVID-19 pandemic. To learn more about this research, you can visit the links provided in the show notes. Lauren, dying and grieving have been taboo topics in many societies. Why do you think that is?
Professor Lauren Breen (01:08):
I think dying and grief are definitely something we struggle with. And in fact, there was a study a few years ago that showed that there's something like over a thousand euphemisms for dying. So we might all be able to think of a few right now, passed away or expired, but there's so, so many. And there's even some discussion now that we're probably even worse sometimes at grief because we at least have a lot more systems set up for death and dying than we do for grief. And that's because we might have a lot of discomfort. We don't know what to say, so we say nothing. So I think there's a lot of space for us to do a lot better when it comes to grief.
Sarah Taillier (01:49):
When you're talking about that space, the word grief literacy is what comes to mind. What does that actually mean though?
Professor Lauren Breen (01:55):
So grief literacy is the capacity to access and process and use knowledge regarding loss. And it has three parts. So it's about knowledge of grief and loss, values about compassion and care, and skills that enable us to act in a compassionate way when someone is grieving. So that might be an offer to support a person or knowing to avoid something cliched. And the concept of grief literacy was something that I and some international colleagues worked together to come up with this concept and to define it.
Sarah Taillier (02:27):
Why is that an area that was important to explore for you?
Professor Lauren Breen (02:31):
Because I think people are terrible at it. Basically, we all feel very uncomfortable about it. I'm not immune from that and we end up avoiding the situation. Or literally you find bereaved people will say, "I was at the shops. I saw someone I know, they saw me see them, and they ran away from me because they didn't want to have to talk to me about the loss that I just experienced."
Sarah Taillier (02:56):
I want to come to that a little later on in terms of how we should be managing it. But for now, we hear a lot about the phases of grieving. Do some cultures embrace and manage those better than others?
Professor Lauren Breen (03:11):
I think there is this idea that we go through stages of grief or phases of grief, but most people who are grieving wouldn't talk about grief in that way. They would say it's more like a rollercoaster ride or that it's not like walking a staircase. And all the research nowadays shows that there aren't these distinct stages or phases of grief, but unfortunately there's a lot of myths out there about grief. And that of course is one of them that you're meant to go through grief in these very distinct stages in a set order.
Sarah Taillier (03:39):
In reality, what does it look like?
Professor Lauren Breen (03:42):
Well, I think, yeah, it's more what it isn't. So it's not just a single emotion, it's not about stages. It's not about finding closure and moving on. So all those things that we think we know about grief are not necessarily correct. And in fact, I'd prefer people knew nothing about grief than what they think they know, which is wrong. But going back to your question about different cultures, there isn't really a lot of research that's done cross-cultural comparisons. There's certainly some but not a lot. One place where people think they do death and grief really well is Ireland. And I was part of a team where we actually did some comparisons. So we sent out surveys to a large number of people in Australia and a large number of people in Ireland. And we had similar questions so we could compare what's going on. And interestingly, there were very similar reports about the impact of bereavement on their physical and mental health and also about the same proportion about one third who said, "I didn't get the support that I needed," or, "I didn't get enough support from the people around me."
Sarah Taillier (04:40):
So I want to welcome Shelly into the conversation who I could hear really agreeing at different points while you were talking, Lauren. Shelly, you founded a children's bereavement service, Lionheart Camp for Kids. How are kids often overlooked in our acknowledgement of grief and grieving experiences?
Shelly Skinner (05:00):
I think that we've come a long way in recent years in including children in grief and ritual, but we probably still have a ways to go and possibly that stems from what Lauren was just speaking about and that is that people feel so uncomfortable as adults. And as adults, we have the words and we have the experience and we have the ability to make ourselves understood in our emotions and what we need, but children don't necessarily have those skills yet. And if we are not able to navigate it well as adults, then as children, they can sometimes be forgotten or left behind. We don't know how to include them.
Sarah Taillier (05:40):
What's the long-term impact on kids who aren't given the space and the support to grieve for the loss of someone close to them?
Shelly Skinner (05:49):
I think, overarchingly, the research shows that if you experience grief or the death of someone important in your life when you are really small and you're not able to attend to your grief or to process it or have an opportunity to integrate it into your life, we like to say that it's how to make grief a chapter in your life book and not the title or the theme of your whole life book. Without that opportunity then we do see that adolescents and then adults have higher experiences of mental ill health, more risk-taking behaviours, more death by suicide, more addiction issues, smoking and drugs, less educational achievements, more unemployment, and then even just difficulty maintaining relationships later in life.
Sarah Taillier (06:37):
Can you just give us an insight about why you started the Lionheart Camp for Kids and what that space is providing?
Shelly Skinner (06:44):
Sure. So my mum died when I was 26 and my mom and dad had very traditional gender roles in our home. And I remember after mom died thinking, "I can't imagine what mine and my sister's life would looked like if I'd been six when mom died." Who would have provided that teaching us about values and beliefs and the type of women that my mom wanted us to be? So that I guess was my personal connection. And then working as a social worker at Hollywood Hospital and Princess Margaret and now PCH, I see lots of families who are expecting the death of a family member and everybody says, "I don't know who's going to help support the children. How are they going to navigate this grief when I'm gone?"
(07:38):
And in WA, there is a good amount of not-for-profits and charities and supports that you receive if your family member dies from cancer. However, if your family member dies from a non-cancer cause, then there is very little support. And one of the things that's been so important for Lionheart is to make sure that we are available to everyone in WA regardless of how your family member died. And we just want people to know that grief is normal and to be with other people who've had the same experience and who understand what's going on with them. Because without someone there to offer that normalisation, then children can think that they're doing it wrong or they're too sad or not sad enough or too angry or... And children and adults grieve really differently. And so sometimes adults can get a bit muddled when children are doing their child grief thing, which is different to the adult grief thing. And adults will say, "Oh, they're not sad enough." Or, "They're too sad." Or, "They were only sad for five minutes and then they asked me what was for dinner."
(08:44):
So being able to just offer that reassurance and the education and the skills that children and families can take and learn now, and then use in the rest of their lives because just because you have a family member who dies when you're seven doesn't mean you suddenly get a free pass at life and life's going to be beautiful and rosy forever. So if we can learn these skills now, we can use them as the challenges of life continue.
Sarah Taillier (09:11):
What about our processes of palliative care? This question goes to either of you, do these need to change to include the grieving process after death?
Shelly Skinner (09:21):
So it's a really interesting question because I took on a short little secondment role as the bereavement coordinator doing a project at Perth Children's Hospital last year looking at exactly that. What is the role of bereavement care in a hospital health department setting? And it's really interesting. So speaking with everyone WA, people interstate, and a lot of international colleagues, it seems that everyone has exact same uncertainty about the role of bereavement care in public health. And I think one of the challenges for staff is that you are providing this beautiful care to someone at end of life. And these families can be in your hospital for years and years at a time and you form beautiful relationships and families feel really held in that space. However, after your family member dies, you then return to your home. And so even just by location and space, you are not connected to those people anymore.
(10:27):
And then the great challenge for staff is that you then actually have to walk into the next patient's room and start all over again. So being able to provide that service is really challenging to do bereavement care because of the nature of the health system and the nature of a hospital, which is kind of how it has to be. You need to see the next person who walks in the door. And then the challenge can be for families that they want to continue to be connected to their health service and in some ways that's quite a healthy want, but that needs to start to taper off in time as people reconnect with their community and they reconnect with the rest of their world and the rest of their family and their networks. So it's definitely a delicate balance and I don't know that anyone knows the right answer yet, but work in progress.
Professor Lauren Breen (11:18):
Yeah, I would add that I think issues of death and grief are obviously very central to palliative care and central to the definition of what palliative care is meant to be as the most well-developed approach to managing end-of-life issues. But it is interesting that in many situations there's a palliative care team and, of course, there's a doctor and a nurse and a social worker and a chaplain, but often there isn't someone who is that grief specialist or that bereavement care specialist. And I find that interesting where on one hand the definition has it so central, but in practise it's not necessarily as central. And I think it's because people aren't quite sure where to put it or how to do it and how to do it well.
(12:04):
In one of the projects that Shelly and I did, which we haven't finished yet, which was looking at people whose job it is, is to provide telephone bereavement care follow up. And we interviewed people who do that and who do that... They have quite a lot of expertise because that's part of their job. But very many of them said to us, "Well, I wasn't really trained in it, I sort of had to learn as I did it. So I'm phoning families or phoning people, but I don't really know how to do it." And figuring it out as they go because it's not something that's a standardised approach or that this is what you do and this is how you say it and this is what the conversation should be about when you do phone. So we've gathered all that information and are hoping to do something with that very soon too.
Sarah Taillier (12:49):
Another area, when we think about end of life, that has been a real focus and there's been potentially increasing acceptance in this space in Australia for voluntary assisted dying since the legislation has passed, do you think that's helped to broaden discussions about death and grieving?
Professor Lauren Breen (13:06):
Yeah, so voluntary assisted dying now is legal in all six Australian states, but it's quite new still. There's a lot of things that we still don't know about it. The jury is still out. One thing that we do know is that where in other jurisdictions outside of Australia, there were concerns for people whose family member used assisted dying for their death, that those family members were very concerned about being stigmatised. "I can't say, 'Oh, dad died from assisted dying,' I'd say he died from cancer," because they were very worried about that.
(13:39):
And so I've been involved with some teams where we've done studies in Australia and in the US to try and look at whether there is public stigma and we didn't find any. So on the one hand, that's great. So those concerns about public stigma are perhaps unfounded, but yeah, I think there's still a lot that we do need to know. And I don't know, Shelly, do you have anything else that you wanted to add around how has it helped us to talk more about these issues?
Shelly Skinner (14:09):
I don't know that it has, but I also don't know that it hasn't. For families who were going to talk about it, it probably has offered more opportunity to do that, but for families who were probably not going to talk about it before, are probably still not talking about as much as they could.
(14:29):
Interestingly, when you spoke about the stigma, it made me think of this one family who came to camp and the little boy didn't want to come into camp. It's very preposterous to say to a child though, like, "Let's go and talk with a bunch of strangers on your school holidays about the saddest thing that's ever happened in your life." Seems a bit ridiculous. However, above and beyond that apprehension, he really didn't want to come in and I remember saying, "I don't understand. Do you want to just come in for 10 minutes? If you don't like it after 10 minutes, you can totally go home."
(14:59):
And he said, "Kids don't like me anymore. Before when kids knew my dad was sick and when they knew he was going to die, they wanted to be my friend, but when they found out that he died of HIV, they didn't want to be my friend anymore. They would throw food at me and they would bully me and they would hit me and they would trip me over." And I said, "You know what? You are in the right place because we all are here because someone in our family died." And he came in and he made the most beautiful friends and it was the most gorgeous camp. But the stigma of how your person died is real. And even if there's only 1% of people that have that story, the fact that it happened to him makes it real and makes other people worried about it.
Professor Lauren Breen (15:47):
Yeah, makes it harder to try and get support or to talk openly about it when you're feeling like you have to engage in a level of secrecy management because you're really concerned about the reactions you're going to get,
Sarah Taillier (15:58):
That is a heartbreaking story, but also the fact the end of it isn't heartbreaking, that you've been able to welcome him into a community that he'll be really embraced in. We're just going to pause for a minute and we'll be back after this short message.
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Sarah Taillier (16:43):
Lauren, you've undertaken some research in pandemic grief. What has the enormous and still very much still ongoing death toll of COVID-19 taught us about grieving?
Professor Lauren Breen (16:59):
I think COVID-19 has changed everything. It's changed how we live, how we die, and how we grieve. This sounds terrible, but one good thing that's come out of it is that I think it's helped people to recognise non-death losses and that they are actually also really important to acknowledge and that they can require support. Because lots of people obviously lost jobs or lost their plans for retirement or lost their ability to go to their, I don't know, high school graduation or all of those kinds of things.
(17:30):
One of the projects I was involved in is called the Pandemic Grief Project, which is with some US colleagues, and we did a series of studies in the US and also one in the United Kingdom looking at symptoms of anxiety, depression, problematic grief, anxiety, sorry... alcohol and other drug use and impaired functioning in key areas of life like work and leisure and relationships. And unfortunately, we found very high levels of all of those things and there was no differences according to cause of death. So whether it was from COVID-19 specifically or other natural death or unnatural death. And so we concluded that grief from deaths during COVID-19 is important and that warrants the same clinical concern as deaths that are from COVID-19.
(18:21):
And so in thinking about what this might mean for Australia, I'm part of another research team that designed a national study to actually look at grief experiences and support needs of over 2,000 people in Australia who have been bereaved from any cause during the pandemic and we are writing up the findings from that. But those international findings, coupled with this preliminary Australian data, are a strong indicator that we are likely to see, I guess, sustained struggles with grief that might warrant additional community support and professional intervention. And I do worry that with a lot of this, the intention I guess to move on from the pandemic, means I am worried about how people's grief from it will be recognised or not because of the intention to just want to move on and put it all behind us.
Sarah Taillier (19:08):
We've touched on it throughout the podcast, but how important is that recognition in someone being able to fully integrate that grief and that chapter?
Professor Lauren Breen (19:17):
I think it's very important. Otherwise, your experience isn't validated or you end up may be even invalidating it yourself or stigmatising yourself, or you just have to not be able to speak about it with other people because they just roll their eyes at you or run away from you or they're not in some other ways validating it for you as well.
Sarah Taillier (19:41):
This question goes to either of you. There's ongoing concern as well about the so-called death industry and the cost of funerals. Do you think that in light of our changing attitudes towards deaths, in some ways the funeral industry will change?
Shelly Skinner (19:57):
I think the funeral industry is a business and all businesses run as businesses run. You will find there are some funeral directors who perhaps aren't as open to different types of funerals, aren't as open to keeping the costs down, aren't as open to all the changes that the community is trying to make. But there are other funeral directors, like in Busselton's William Barrett & Sons, and they are wonderful in the funeral industry and they hold monthly community information sessions around grief. They run groups, they are leaders in supporting their community. They are very proactive in not only being a business but supporting their community.
Sarah Taillier (20:54):
What do you think?
Professor Lauren Breen (20:54):
Yeah, I think there's so much variability out there and it's important to, well, as you and I always talk about, talk about issues of death and talk about issues of grief and talk about what you want and what your plans are and what's important to you, and don't leave it to the last minute or not at all. Even if someone dies suddenly, if you've already had a bit of a conversation with them anyway about what they want and the type of funeral they want, maybe you've already had a chance then to investigate different funeral companies that are out there. And they offer lots of different things nowadays with some doing green burials, if that's appropriate for the circumstances or the way that they might involve different members of the family and how they might really make it personal to the person who has died. So I think it's always really good to talk about these kinds of things with people to make sure... I mean, my mom always talks about what dress she wants to be buried in and what songs she wants played. And so I know that when the time comes, for sure.
Shelly Skinner (21:54):
They don't have to be hard conversations. Certainly since my mum died and we had her funeral, we talk about it all the time. So my sister has a guest list of people who are allowed to come and not come and it changes. She has her music list and it changes. She went through a breakup at one point, and I remember her saying, "I want you to get security and I want you to make sure that this person and that person's not allowed to come." And so we joke and talk about it all the time. And I feel like similarly Lauren, that if she were to die before me, that I would have a reasonably good grasp on what it is that was going to be important to her. And they can be kind of lighthearted, hilarious conversations at times, but they don't have to be planned. They don't have to be structured and they can just come up in the car or at the dinner table.
Professor Lauren Breen (22:51):
Or even an icebreaker, what kind of song would you like played at your funeral? Great idea.
Shelly Skinner (22:58):
Yeah.
Sarah Taillier (22:59):
I love that. Add that into the dating cards. It's a brilliant one. So Shelly, you speak to your sister about her hopes for her funeral. Lauren, you were saying you speak to your mom about the dress that she'd like to wear and the rest. Were these conversations that your family were already comfortable having, or do you think it's because you are both so grief literate that it's become something that's more comfortable and normalised?
Professor Lauren Breen (23:24):
Certainly, I think. I don't want to speak for Shelly, but with our children, so I have two and Shelly has three and I think we're probably the weird moms, but we do talk about it all the time with the kids to the point that they just roll their eyes at me and mine are a little bit older than Shelly's. So yeah, it's kind of interesting that this is the way that we talk about it from the time they're really little about, you see, I don't know, a dead bug or a bird or something like that or something on TV and I just talk about it a lot more rather than hiding it from them or trying to shield them from talking about that or the feelings that might come up or the thoughts that might come up.
Sarah Taillier (24:05):
This is something I really wanted to ask. We've been talking throughout about how children should be involved and the impact of them not being involved in the grieving process and ritual. How should we be involving children and what should those conversations look like, Shelly?
Shelly Skinner (24:23):
I think involving children as much as is appropriate for your family and as much as the adults feel comfortable doing that. My rule of thumb for kids who are in grief is the questions often relate to the three Cs. So can I catch it? Did I cause it? And what are the consequences for me? So for unpacking the majority of their questions that is those three are underlying somewhere. And so if they ask a question, I think giving a short, sharp answer in a age appropriate, developmentally appropriate kind of way. And then just offer a follow-up question. "Did that answer your question? If you have any more questions about that, always feel free to come back and talk to me." Because the thing is, particularly when we're talking about things like death by suicide or death by murder or homicide, if we don't let kids know, we live in a society now where social media, the news...
(25:20):
Like when I grew up, the only people I knew what they wore, what they did with their time was literally my neighbours and the kids in my class. But now we just know what everyone is doing around the world at all times. And so what we find with a lot of families who find it hard to be honest or get caught up in the... What did you call it? The gymnastics of secrecy or whatever. They get caught up in that, the kids will end up finding out from someone else. So giving small bits of information that is factual and as much as that seems appropriate to share at the time is much safer for kids than keeping secrets.
Professor Lauren Breen (25:59):
I think one of the things that people maybe question early on is whether or not children should go to a funeral. And there's some research done by a charity in the UK called Winston's Wish, and they found that it's very important to provide the children information about what a funeral is and who's going to be there and what people wear and how they might behave and so on. And then provide the children with the choice, "Do you want to go or not?" And either decision is fine. And they found that children who never got the choice were very regretful and very upset about it, but that none of the children who they surveyed who got to go said, "I feel bad that I went. I should never have gone." So I think sometimes we do a bit of a disservice when our intention is to do the right thing to try and protect the kids, but it actually can backfire.
Shelly Skinner (26:48):
I will always remember working in the paediatric intensive care ward, and there was a little girl who was going to die and she was in ICU and she was hooked up to so many different chords and tubes and things. She had four siblings and the parents were unsure about whether to bring siblings into the hospital and to explain, they didn't want them to be frightened, didn't want there to be any negative long-term consequences because hospitals are scary. There's a lot of beeping, there's the white lights, quite cold. I just remember the nurse doing so beautifully. The children came in and the nurse described every single different tube, what it did, where it went, why the noise made their blah blah, blah. This happened and the children felt this real sense of mastery about caring for their sibling.
(27:36):
And so I noticed for the weeks that came after that, that every time another adult walked into the room, one of the children would say, "That's where the urine goes, and that beep means this, and that means my sister needs such and such." And they felt like they were providing care to her and they were involved in her journey and her life all the way to the end. And I just remember thinking the parents could have chosen not to do that and it would've been such a different experience for them as a family. And that might not work for every family, but I think giving people the option is always a good place to start.
Sarah Taillier (28:11):
Keeping it age appropriate obviously, but that resilience, I think we're often surprised that children have. Let's fast-forward to adults as well. We're talking about how a lot of us don't know how to have those conversations and how to approach people who are experiencing grief. What would you recommend? How do you start that conversation? Any pointers?
Professor Lauren Breen (28:34):
I don't think there's... We can't always remove that feeling of discomfort or being unsure about what to say or what to do. But what is really powerful to know is that bereaved people say" Just having someone be there for me, the fact that my friend was there for me." They say the word or the phrase being there. So you don't actually have to do or say anything. You just be there for them, even if it's sitting in silence with them or making them a cup of tea or texting them something, "I'm thinking of you." Or thinking about something they might want and then delivering on that. Sometimes we think it might be helpful to say, "Let me know if you need anything." But that of course puts the onus back on the bereaved person to think, "Well, what do I need? Oh, I need this, I should reach out. No, they're too busy. I don't want to."
(29:22):
So you could actually provide them with a more concrete offer of support. "Would it be helpful for you if I dropped a casserole over to you on Tuesday? Would it be helpful for you if I picked the kids up for you on Thursday?" And then they can say yes or no, but it's more of a concrete offer. So I think, yeah, a few tips I would give is about the importance of being there and making a concrete offer, practical offer.
Sarah Taillier (29:48):
A big part of this podcast is looking ahead. How do you see the future of grief evolving and what are your hopes for how attitudes towards grief may evolve?
Professor Lauren Breen (29:59):
I think there's so much more that I would love to see. I'd love to hear people talk about grief a lot more, know a lot more about it, be a bit more comfortable talking about it. All of that kind of thing would be great. And I know I'm a bit weird, maybe Shelly is as well, but we find this topic really exciting and interesting and between us, we sort of cover off a lot of the research and the practical side of things, and there's so much more that can be done and so much more that energises us to do this.
(30:31):
So in terms of research, a lot of what was known particularly a few decades ago was very much based around white, middle class, middle-aged women whose husbands had died after an illness. And so there's still so much more we need to know about other groups and other cultures and other ages and other everything. So that keeps me excited in terms of the research side of things, and of course trying to do research that makes a difference. And so that's why I work with people like Shelly so that we can work together to translate things into practise and also do research around the practise.
Shelly Skinner (31:09):
From my perspective, I think allowing and educating and offering the space for children to learn the words and understand their emotions and to be able to express themselves. Instead of having a sore tummy, being able to say, "I feel angry because..." or, "I feel anxious because..." or, "I can't sleep because..." If we learn these skills now, then down the track we end up with people who can express their wants, express their needs, express their challenges that don't just play out then in risk-taking behaviour and mental ill health and breakdown in relationship and aggression and all of the things. If we can just be understood and to know that life is not always easy.
Sarah Taillier (32:02):
Lauren, you are known for your research experience in the psychology of grief and loss. In fact, you've received an award from the Association for Death Education and Counselling in the US. As a psychologist, what drew you to research in this area?
Professor Lauren Breen (32:19):
Just like everyone else, I'm not immune to having experienced some bereavements and losses in my life. There was one death when I was 20, one death in my extended family in a road traffic crash. And seeing the impact that it had on others in the family and how the social networks changed as well in terms of, yeah, some people who I thought maybe might be more supportive ones and vice versa. Some people were amazing and came out the woodwork and were just amazing. And there was a court case and there was all of this. And I think at the time I was about to start my honours' year in psychology and I thought, "Oh, I'll just look at the research in psychology and social work and sociology and medicine and nursing and try and make sense of what I'm seeing and what's going on." And I could see so many gaps.
(33:09):
So a little bit later on when I was looking for a topic for my PhD, I thought, "Well, obviously I know what it can be on." So it was on people's experiences when a family member has died in a road traffic crash in Western Australia. So I did that and then I've just continued on doing research primarily in areas of psychology or grief and loss ever since.
Sarah Taillier (33:27):
I can't wait to see what's next. Shelly, you've received a John Curtin medal for your contributions to the community for paediatric palliative care. How did you identify that there was a gap related to children's bereavement?
Shelly Skinner (33:41):
So working in paediatrics, I noticed very much that in WA, if you have a family member who dies from cancer, that there is a lot of good support out there. And we know that if there is no support for children, that there are lots of short, medium, and long-term negative outcomes and consequences that can arise. And we wanted to make sure that regardless of how your special person died, regardless of what relationship there was to you, regardless of where you live in WA, regardless of your socioeconomic status, that there was support available to help you understand, to help you process, to help you integrate grief into your life and to make sure that kids know that when someone dies, it doesn't mean that they're not part of your life anymore, that they can be part of your story forever. And help kids work out what part of their story the people in their life play moving forward forever.
Sarah Taillier (34:49):
Thank you Shelly and Lauren for coming in today and sharing your insights and your hopes for the future, part of a space that we're all part of, but learning different techniques to really lean into the discomfort and the joys that I'm sure are in there. Best of luck with your ongoing research.
Professor Lauren Breen (35:09):
Thank you so much.
Shelly Skinner (35:09):
Thank you for having us.
Sarah Taillier (35:12):
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