Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]

Meeting date: Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Official Report 1485KB pdf

Time for Reflection

Good afternoon. The first item of business is time for reflection. Our time for reflection leader today is Ben Kane, an inspirational young man who will share his experiences with us.

Presiding Officer, members of the Scottish Parliament, I have been invited to share the work that we have been carrying out at Inverclyde surrounding childhood bereavement.

United Kingdom figures show that one in 29 children loses a parent or sibling prior to the age of 18. That equates to at least one child in every classroom in Scotland. Through my own experience as a young person who suffered the loss of a close loved one, the need for greater support and understanding in the school environment was glaringly obvious to me.

Although in the immediate aftermath of events everyone was full of kind words and condolences, it soon became very clear that the long-term impact of such an event was very much misunderstood by all. The isolation that I felt led to a realisation of how others might be feeling. As a result, I spoke to fellow pupils who had suffered a loss and asked how they would have felt if better support had been in place. The response was resounding. That encouraged me and Mrs Elaine Tait to set up the first pupil-led bereavement support group in Scotland.

Through the use of group discussion activities and one-to-one support, Clydeview academy has become a bereavement safe space for young people. In making that happen, we have supported the creation of a more comfortable and understanding culture in the school environment for bereaved young people. Alongside our support group, Clydeview academy was also the first school to mark children’s grief awareness week in 2022.

After leaving school, I began a new chapter as an activist rather than a school pupil. In 2023, our campaign grabbed national headlines following success in the national Rotary awards. In the past year, we have accomplished a variety of once-unthinkable goals, from the development of lesson plans with Inverclyde Council to uniting our discussions as part of the Inverclyde bereavement network and the marking of children’s grief awareness week in this chamber.

The story of Clydeview bereavement support is not one that bears my own name or that of Clydeview academy. The group and the campaign have been centred around the coming together of a community and a sense of willingness to support our own. I will be forever indebted to local organisations such as Mind Mosaic Child and Family Therapies and Ardgowan Hospice for equipping me to take the campaign from a small coastal town to national frontiers. The work of Stuart McMillan and his staff has also been pivotal to sharing our message across the nation.

Our campaign has risen from the humble beginnings of a pupil support classroom to the heights of working with the Scottish Government and BBC Scotland’s “The Nine”. The campaign might have started as a local push for change but, with the support of national organisations such as Child Bereavement UK, we have been afforded the opportunity to share our vision across Scotland.

My remarks have tried to summarise a journey from the greatest pain that a person can feel to a place of hope and a desire for better. That desire—that want for better—is something that I will carry with me throughout my life and will hopefully inspire others to ensure that no child grieves alone.