Huge congratulations to Jillian on getting her paper “The impact of child loss on career decision-making and trajectory” published by the Nice Journal.

Jillian Millar mum to Rachael and Frazer is now a Careers adviser for Skills Development Scotland. Last year she kindly shared her story of Rachael and her personal experience and expertise with us on episode 12 about going back to work after the death of a child.

Jillian has recognised that their are no guidelines or support in human resources and organisations with supporting a parent bereaved of their child and how this impacts parents trying to return to work and further impacts their mental health and well being.

This extract is taken from the introduction of the report:

The implications of this current research are that career practitioners working with bereaved parents should not seek to minimise or gloss over experiences of child loss, but to acknowledge the depth and intensity of grief symptoms and emotions, including anxiety, low confidence, and self-esteem. They should also be equipped to support the bereaved parent to investigate, navigate and work with their loss, helping them identify ways in which they could move forward with meaning and purpose, and recognising that for some the traumatic event could be the catalyst for career change in many different guises

This extract from taken from the literature review:

Parents reacted in very different ways, with some returning to work three weeks post-loss and others absent for more than a year. Returning to work may also raise significant fears, such as facing work colleagues, being the subject of gossip and receiving little support, with the offer of workplace adjustments being a key driver determining if, or when, the bereaved parent returns to work (Macdonald et al, 2015; Wilson et al, 2020). This demonstrates that although it is likely that child loss will impact career development, the ways in which it impacts can vary between individuals and depends on their circumstances. Despite the clear impact of child loss on workplace experiences, there is almost no research on career development more broadly, including how bereaved parents may feel about their careers and the career decisions they might make. This current project aimed to address this gap by asking two key questions – firstly, how does the loss of a living child or children impact on career decision-making and trajectory? And secondly, how does this reflect or challenge existing career theory and practice, and add to the limited academic literature currently in circulation? J

Please do take the time to read and share the full paper here:
https://nicecjournal.co.uk/index.php/nc/article/view/499/490

The Compassionate Friends have a useful leaflet on returning to work that Jillian contributed to here:
https://www.tcf.org.uk/flip/Back-to-work/

Episode 12 is dedicated to Rachael. You can listen to it here