Students and Teacher-Counsellors’ Perceptions of an Appropriate Environment for Bereavement Recovery among Secondary School Students in Mumias District, Kenya

Abstract

Bereavement is a state of loss of a loved one through death. The death cases of People including parents of secondary school students are on the increase in Kenya due to road accidents, fire outbreaks HIV and AIDS pandemic and other related illnesses. Grief which is a reaction to bereavement has negative physical, social and emotional effects on the bereaved child. Bereaved students need an appropriate environment for bereavement recovery at school to help them to deal with the negative effects of grief because the surviving parent and significant others who are supposed to help them at home are pre-occupied with their own grieving. The bereaved students also need to continue with their schooling away from the home environment yet the grieving process may take a long time. The purpose of study was to investigate the students and teacher-counsellors’ perceptions of the appropriate environment for bereavement recovery among secondary school students. A descriptive survey research design was employed in this study. An accessible population of 49 teacher-counsellors was targeted out of which a sample of 23 participated in the study. The target population was 17,200 secondary school students out of which an accessible population of 634 students who had lost one or both parents through death was selected for the study. A sample size of 170 students who had lost one or both parents through death participated in the study. Purposive sampling methods were used to select the required sample. The data was collected using a questionnaire. The collected data was analyzed by both descriptive and inferential statistics with the help of a Statistical Package for Social International Journal of Academic Research in Progressive Education and Development Sciences (SPSS) version 17.0. The descriptive statistics included means, frequencies, percentages
and standard deviations whereas inferential statistics involved a t-test. All tests were done at a significant level of α = 0.05. The study findings recalled the students and teacher counsellors’ perceptions of the appropriate environment for bereavement recovery among secondary school students in Mumias District. The findings of the research indicated that both students and
teacher counsellors had a positive perception of the appropriate environment for bereavement recovers among secondary school students. However, the perception of female students of the recovery environment was more positive than that of the male students. It was recommended that teacher and peel’ counsellors he trained to effectively help bereaved students to overcome grief. The findings of the research may benefit the Ministry of Education, parents and secondary school Students to effectively work through grief and adjust well in the absence of the deceased parent or parents.