Handling Trauma: Therapy for Kids Bereaved by Violence

When a child loses a loved one to homicide, it's tough. We need to help them cope. Researchers in Britain recently studied how kids and teens deal with this horror. They focused on a treatment called Traumatic Grief-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TGF-CBT). 222 kids, aged 8 to 25, who finished this therapy by July 2017, were looked at. Scientists wanted to see if this treatment really helps. They found that Posttraumatic Stress (PTS) symptoms dropped a lot after treatment. Interestingly, older kids often dropped out early. Girls started with more PTS symptoms, but those who lost a parent or sibling started with less. Kids with more initial symptoms saw a bigger change during therapy. The study shows that TGF-CBT can be a good way to help. But every kid is unique, so treatments should be personalized. More research is key to understanding how to best help kids dealing with such a tragic loss.