Bearing witness: A grounded theory of the experiences of staff at two United Kingdom Higher Education Institutions following a student death by suicide

Abstract

Wider networks of people are affected by a suicide death than originally thought, including those whose job-role brings them into contact with a death by suicide of another person. The impact of student suicide within United Kingdom (UK) Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) is unexplored and the experiences of staff members remain unknown. It is not known whether staff members have specific postvention needs following a student death by suicide. Any postvention support currently offered to staff members within UK HEIs lacks a context-specific evidence base. This study asked ‘How is a student suicide experienced by staff members within a UK HEI and what are the features of that experience?’ Staff members from diverse job-roles in two UK HEIs responded to a qualitative survey (n = 19) and participated in semi-structured interviews (n = 10). Data were transcribed and subjected to a constructivist grounded theory analysis. Participants’ experiences informed the development of a core category: ’Bearing witness’, which encompassed six further categories: ’Responding to a student suicide’; ’Experiencing a student suicide’; ’Needs and fears’; ’Experiences of support’; ’Human stories’; and ’Cultural stories’. The resulting grounded theory demonstrates how participants’ perceptions of impact are informed by their experiences of undertaking tasks following a student suicide within the community of their HEI. Processes of constructing perceptions of closeness to the student who died are evident amongst participants who did not know the student prior to their death. Tailored postvention support is required to respond to the range and complexity of HEI staff needs following a student death by suicide.

Suicide postvention for staff and students on university campuses: a scoping review

“…The included articles were published between 1989 and 2021 (online supplemental table 1). Most articles (n=8) were from the USA,46–52 seven articles from the UK53–59 and two from Canada 60 61. The article study designs included ten quantitative studies47 48 50–52 54 56 60–62 involving the use of surveys; two qualitative studies using grounded theory and phenomenological approaches49 53 which collected data using semi-structured interviews.…”

Mellan kulturkrig och byråkrati – om akademisk frihet och universitetslärares professionalitet

“…Det är självklart att sådana ämnen kan beröra människor på ett sätt som kan komma att behöva hanteras i klassrummet -helt enkelt för att fokus behöver ligga på övningen i analys, inte på studenters egna erfarenheter. Särskilt känsligt kan det bli att diskutera exempelvis cancer, om en i studentgruppen nyss drabbats av eller gått bort i cancer (jfr Streufert, 2004); om det skett en uppmärksammad våldtäkt i ett studentsammanhang (Wilkerson, 1999) eller om en student begått självmord och därför saknas i klassrummet (Causer et al, 2021). Alla sådana omständigheter blir för en universitetslärare något att förhålla sig till.…”

Building Trauma Informed Teachers: A Constructivist Grounded Theory Study of Remote Primary School Teachers’ Experiences With Children Living With the Effects of Complex Childhood Trauma

“…The aim of the study was to capture and theorize the ways in which teachers in remote primary schools experience their work with children living with the effects of complex childhood trauma, with a view to informing university curriculum and education governance systems for initial teacher education and continuing professional development. The study used constructivist grounded theory (Charmaz, 2014) which is commonly utilized to investigate the lived experiences of participants (Karpouza and Emvalotis, 2019;Aburn et al, 2021;Causer et al, 2021;Hood and Copeland, 2021;Williams et al, 2021).…”