Conducting Children's Funerals
Professional competence in the hardest funerals there are — legal, technical, emotional and systemic.
A child's funeral is not simply a funeral for a younger person.
It is a different situation altogether — legal, technical, emotional and systemic. A family that loses a child is thrown into disarray in a way that lasts for years. You are present for a week of that. What you do in that week casts a longer shadow than you might think.
This course is about professional competence in that situation. What you need to know, what you need to be able to do, and how you hold yourself together while doing it. Not to fix the parents' grief — that isn't your job. But to carry the process in a way that lets the family focus on saying goodbye.
What You'll Learn
- Statistics, context and the social landscape around child death in the UK
- The boundaries of your role — funeral director, not therapist
- The Loss Triangle: assessing a family's capacity to cope, and acting on what you see
- Professional knowledge: cremation, burial, viewing and the handling of ashes
- The first phone call and the legal complexity of child death
- Schools, social media and the wider community — what to do, what not to do
- International and intercultural casework
- Complex cases: what actually happens, and how you stay standing
- Self-care: staying sustainable in heavy work
The Five Modules
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2
3
4
5
- Funeral directors
- Funeral arrangers
- Trainee funeral directors
Basic knowledge of funeral care is useful but not required.
Take care of yourself as you work through it. If a case becomes too much: pause. Step away. Come back. Being affected is the point — being overwhelmed is the signal to stop.
Practical Information
FAQ
Richard Hattink has worked professionally with children, young people and families in grief and bereavement since 1999. He is the founder of BijDeHand — guidance for parents with a terminal illness and their families — and of KC-ToThePoint, an international knowledge centre on grief in children and young people. He works across the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Austria, Poland and France.