Challenges in evaluating childhood bereavement services

Abstract

This paper discusses the evaluation of childhood bereavement services in the UK policy context and some of the challenges this presents. Two key difficulties are discussed: the lack of any clear, agreed outcomes from bereavement interventions with children, and the challenge of evaluating the complex social processes that bereavement interventions involve. Two recommendations are made to address these in the short term and to generate data for wider research. These are: to strengthen services' existing evaluation strategies, and to develop a routine evaluation package that can be used by all services. This would comprise a basic data set, a user satisfaction questionnaire, and a childhood bereavementfocused clinical outcome routine evaluation measure. In the longer term, further research is recommended, including UK-based longitudinal studies.

Keywords:

• Childhood bereavement
• childhood bereavement services
• evaluation
• outcomes
• methodologies

Acknowledgements

This study was funded by the Clara E Burgess Charity. I would also like to thank the focus group and other participants in the Mapping Evaluations project for their contributions to this paper.