Discourses of Bereaved Parents in Social Work

Abstract

Bereaved parents face many challenges after the death of their child and often turn to professional support services, including the field of social work for support and assistance. In the field of social work, there is not a lot of research and education regarding bereaved parents. Through a critical discourse analysis (CDA), academic social work materials are analyzed to gain a basis for understanding how social work students are educated about bereaved parents, as this impacts social work students’ future practice with bereaved parents. The CDA reveals that there are several hidden discourses of ‘normal’ and ‘abnormal’ grief, which marginalize, ostracize and pathologize bereaved parents. There are also discourses of expertise, both the bereaved parent as the expert and the social worker as the expert. The discourse that bereaved parents are experts is less common. Implications of all of these discourses for social work practice is discussed.