When suicide invades the school: Loss and grief by suicide in the experience of students and educators
adolescents; educators; school; mourning; postvention; suicide;
Death is still a forbidden subject in society and, therefore, in school, making it difficult for students and educators to express their grief. Despite this, the number of violent and premature deaths among adolescents and young people in Brazil and in the world has been increasing, with suicide being the second leading cause of death for them worldwide. Given this, invariably death, loss and grief invade the school space. When a student commits suicide, this impact is even greater, because in addition to being an unexpected, violent and stigmatized death, it involves a young person, generating even more commotion in the school community. Suicide affects not only those closest to the victim, such as family and friends, but also a large number of people who were exposed to this tragedy. People bereaved by suicide are more likely to develop suicidal behavior and emotional illness, especially as adolescents, and may even favor suicide by contagion. Faced with such an impact, educators are also affected, but they do not find welcoming spaces and still feel unprepared to deal with their students in the face of this crisis situation. This study aims, therefore, to understand the experience of loss and grief among students and educators, in the face of student (s) suicide, in the school context, in order to contribute to interventions for the postvention (and prevention) of suicide at school. The specific objectives were: (a) to identify the meaning of a young student's death and suicide for students and educators; (b) Know the feelings and behavioral changes experienced by students and educators following a student's suicide; (c) Elucidate the concept of mourning for adolescents/young people and educators; (d) Identify ways of coping with students and educators in relation to loss and possible grief due to suicide; (e) Investigate whether there were reception spaces and other interventions in the school after the student's suicide intended for students and educators (if so, how do they evaluate) and; (f) Identify the difficulties and potential for postvention (and prevention) work on suicide at school. The methodology used is qualitative with theoretical support of Gadamerian Hermeneutics, through the instruments: narrative interview with the use of projective scene with students and conversation circle with educators. The research is being carried out with students and educators who have gone through the experience of student suicide at school. Six interviews were carried out with students (enrolled and graduates), between 17 and 22 years old, from the Natal Central, Natal Cidade Alta and Parnamirim campuses of the Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of Rio Grande do Norte (IFRN), and a conversation circle with educators (teachers, pedagogue, psychologist, social worker and health professionals). The development of the thesis is being built in the form of articles. The first one refers to an integrative review, entitled “Mourning for suicide and postvention at school: an integrative review”, which sought in the literature the knowledge already produced about exposure to suicide and mourning by suicide at school, from the perspective of students and education professionals, from national and international articles. The results pointed to the need to consider the culture, as well as the individual needs of survivors, when formulating postvention programs at school, as well as educational policies that ensure the prior implementation of crisis management plans in these spaces. There was also a small production of studies that contemplated educators and, in Brazil and Latin America, there is a significant gap in relation to this whole theme. The second article “When mourning for suicide invades the school: the helplessness of students and the challenges of postvention (under construction)” whose dialogues with the narratives point to 4 thematic axes: the meaning of death and suicide for students; colleague suicide and fear of losing others or oneself; the presence of bereavement with emotional, cognitive and behavioral manifestations among the students; and the look of students in the face of postvention that reveal their lack of continuity, inattention to students who were not so close to the victim, but who were also affected, inability of educators, in addition to the absence of farewell rituals and recognition of the legacy of who's gone. And the third article: “Educators and the mourning for suicide: between the silenced pain and the challenges of caring (under construction), which also dialogues with the narratives of our collaborators and the literature review. It is hoped with this study to broaden the understanding of loss and mourning by suicide in the school context in order to support interventions linked to postvention and suicide prevention at school.