FAQs

You can no longer purchase a physical toolkit. Bear Us In Mind only had funding to produce 500 physical toolkits, which have been allocated to families around the globe and a number of specialist charity organisations and county councils doing fantastic work with displaced children.

You can, however, make your own! The beauty of Bear Us In Mind is that most items can be found in your home and all accompanying resources (worksheets and videos) to help you turn these items into tools, are available for free on our website.

A child’s attention can vary according to their age and other factors. We suggest that you are guided by the child and read the guidelines that will make your encounters with a child more likely to feel comfortable.

However, we would also suggest that 6 x 1 hour sessions will usually establish a trusted and reliable thinking partnership with a child.

Although Bear Us In Mind was conceived out of the crisis in Ukraine, the tools have been created and expanded to support any child experiencing loss, separation and in some cases bereavement.

We have now translated all our materials in Dari, Pashto, Russian and Arabic (as well as Ukrainian) to enable adults to support children from a wide range of countries.

We also have concerns about a growing mental health crisis for children more generally post pandemic. Therefore, the tools may also be incredibly helpful for children in the UK who are experiencing all sorts of natural feelings arising from loss, separation or bereavement.

A Ukrainian child who has been displaced and is living in the UK will be facing daily issues with people that do not speak their language.

We have ensured that all materials included here have been translated into Ukrainian. This will be particularly useful when working with young children and you may find that most sessions are delivered with a Ukrainian-speaking parent alongside.

In the UK we have a Childhood Bereavement Network that collects peer-researched articles which clearly demonstrate the importance of early intervention.

We have a child mental health crisis in the UK, which includes issues regarding anxiety, depression, self-harm, addiction, eating disorders and OCD.

Many of these problems can be traced back to significant loss or bereavement in childhood. A key source to prevent the entrenchment of mental health problems is early intervention. Some children will need specialist therapeutic input. However most will benefit hugely from simply meeting others in a safe, fun, facilitated setting – we call this peer support. Working closely with parent(s) is an important aspect to avoid the entrenchment of mental health problems in later life.

Not at all. You do not need to have completed a grief counselling course to use the Bear Us In Mind tools. However, you do need to follow our guidelines and be fully committed to accompanying and supporting a child as they do this work alongside you. There are many helplines you can call if you would value guidance on a particular topic that has arisen in your work together.

The first place to start is on our ‘Build Your Toolkit’ page, where you can read all our materials and watch our training films. The best way to learn is to try the tools on yourself or with a child who has not experienced any losses (they are still often fun to do and children love the attention and creative nature of these tools).

Remember - each child comes with very different experiences and expectations. Therefore it is so important to ask your child for feedback. For example: What did they enjoy? What could you have made clearer?

You can support the Naval Bear Us in Mind project in several ways.

You can donate towards the work that we do, offering these and other resources to professionals and families. This will also help us to ensure that the resources reach as many as possible, bringing much needed support to our children, wherever they are.

Find us on Social Media through Facebook and Instagram and sign up for our newsletter to find out more about our work!

If you would like support with the tools then please contact the NCC and one of our team can see how we can help you. You can email us at: caseworkers@navalchildrenscharity.org.uk

You can buy Julie’s book through Amazon or Waterstones.

We are also in the process of translating ‘You Will Be Okay’ into Ukrainian.

We are committed to bringing young people together to process their grief and to try and avoid the future and complex complications of grief and trauma. Therefore, Bear Us In Mind will have 1000 copies to distribute free of charge to those running bereavement book clubs in the late Autumn. Please check our website and social media for updates.