Death, dying and bereavement affect us all; death is a unifying element of life. However, the professionalisation of death – the responsibility to deal with death and the dying – has been devolved to health and social care workers and other professionals. This removal of caring for the dead and dying away from friends, families and communities results in a weakening of the local support networks where bereavement support could be more sensitively delivered. It also diminishes the normality of death. It is perhaps not surprising then that we rarely speak about death and dying, often lacking the experience, language and confidence to do so. However, not being able to talk about the death of our loved ones can lead to mental health issues and other negative outcomes. This is especially true of young people, and is implicated in future depression, smoking, drug dependency, risk-taking behaviour, poor educational attainment, unemployment and criminal activity. Dying to Talk uses the methods and findings of the Continuing Bonds (CB) project – which used archaeology to challenge biases and facilitate discussion around death and bereavement www.continuingbonds.live – taking its outcomes to a new audience of young people and practitioners in Bradford and Wolverhampton.
You can find out more about Dying to Talk here https://continuingbonds.live/what-is-dying-to-talk/, and here www.Dying2Talk.org, and about our pilot project and resources here: www.bradford.ac.uk/dying-to-talk
And read about our pilot project results here: Booth J, Croucher KT and Bryant EJ (2020) Dying to Talk? Co-producing resources with young people to get them talking about bereavement, death and dying. Voluntary Sector Review. https://bradscholars.brad.ac.uk/handle/10454/18206