Year of Award

2024

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Type

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Degree Name

School Psychology

Department or School/College

Department of Psychology

Committee Chair

Jacqueline Brown

Commitee Members

Anisa Goforth, Duncan Campbell, Rachel Williamson, Mary-Ann Sontag

Keywords

COVID-19, grief, rural

Publisher

University of Montana

Abstract

Research has indicated that individuals who have died from the COVID-19 virus will likely leave behind several grieving family members. For every person who dies of COVID-19, it was estimated that they would leave behind 2.2 children and 4.1 grandchildren (Albuquerque & Santos, 2021). The death of a parent or other loved one is often noted as one of the most potentially traumatic experiences for a child. During the COVID-19 pandemic, death became more prominent in hundreds of thousands of children’s lives, having a profound effect on the child, as well as on their family and surrounding community (Griese et al., 2017). Considering these circumstances, many children throughout the U.S. experienced grief for the first time. Grief interventions are built upon the foundation of grief theories that have been prevalent within research for over 40 years. These theories suggest the magnitude of loss that children can experience when they are unsupported during their grief. Further, disruption of the grief process is more likely to happen when the child does not have opportunities to appropriately respond to the loss (i.e., attend a funeral) or access mental health supports (Mortazavi et al., 2020), such as when schools were on lockdown due to coronavirus outbreaks.Because schools can serve as community cornerstones, many students rely upon the school mental health supports available to them during difficult times. However, those living in rural areas are likely to face more barriers than their urban and suburban counterparts, where mental health services are harder to access (Graves et al., 2020) and school mental health professionals receive less professional development training than urban and suburban school mental health professionals (Goforth et al., 2017). This was the case before the pandemic began but has been predicted to be more crucial now than before, with there being a sharp increase of mental health concerns in children following the pandemic (Abuquerque & Santos 2021). It is believed that these professional development trainings are crucial in school mental health professionals’ access to current and evidence-based grief interventions; unfortunately, little data exists to explain the practices of rural mental health professionals in providing grief interventions. Although the need for grief interventions existed before COVID-19, the need for grief support for students has become exponentially larger.

The goal of the proposed study was to examine the utilization of grief interventions in rural schools, as well as identify any changes in the implementation of grief interventions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. To identify the current grief intervention practices and how they were affected by COVID-19, school psychologists and school counselors were interviewed. The collected information not only informed future grief interventions for rural schools, but also provided clarity regarding school mental health professionals’ experiences in addressing student grief. Considering the devastation that the COVID-19 pandemic brought upon thousands of families, it is imperative to understand how rural schools have been supporting their grieving students and whether practices have shifted to accommodate the increased need for comprehensive grief interventions.

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© Copyright 2024 Jennifer Lynn Rotzal