Linking spirituality, school communities, grief and well-being

摘要

This article proposes that school communities are significant public places that help shape identity and can also contribute to social and emotional well-being. If school communities respond appropriately to crises and trauma that affect the young, learning becomes social and emotional as well as academic. School communities offer an opportunity for positive impact, since, during times of crisis - as they are experiencing loss and grief - children and youth turn to parents, peers and teachers to help them make sense of their worlds. Several aspects of making sense of the world are implied in this article, namely, finding a sense of meaning and purpose, experiencing coherence in relation to life goals and feeling a degree of connectedness towards school and schooling. These aspects influence well-being in children and youth. An argument is made to promote whole school communities by exploring the kind of community schools can become when they attend to spirituality as a sense of connectedness and if they address loss and grief holistically. In outlining qualities of a whole school community approach, linkages are made among terms such as spirituality, loss, grief and mental health to reveal the importance of people and place in the well-being of children and adolescents. The article proposes that creating a whole school community approach relies on acknowledging a communal experience, not only the individual experiences, of loss.