How Can Psychologists and Psychiatrists Help COVID-19 Bereaved Persons: Five propositions to Understanding Contextual Challenges

The COVID-19 pandemic is causing unprecedented cumulative deaths and leaving behind millions of bereaved families and individuals. Moreover, the pandemic is disrupting social fabrics in the conventional way we mourn our deads. In this context therefore, how can psychologists, psychiatrists and other health care professionals help bereaved families and individuals more effectively? This opinion paper proposed five recommendations that cover mental health care needs and challenges which may emerge from the management of these traumatic deaths. In all, efforts to comply with either DSM-5 or ICD-11 PGD guidelines could help COVID-19 bereaved persons with overwhelming distress, as they ensure therapists' use of appropriate terminologies in therapeutic alliances. However, clinicians need to have a global perspective of COVID-19 bereavement courses, political and public health measures due to the pandemic, and flexible attitudes about the ICD-11 and of DSM-5 time-criterion for diagnosis. This paper emphasizes the importance of social and collective recognition of COVID-19 deaths through various symbolic and materialized forms to free up collective and individual capacities for resilience. The necessity of individual and group interventions through online platforms is underscored, however these modes of therapies may not reinforce social inequalities by excluding bereaved individuals who really need them.</jats:p

Evaluating the risks of school dropout amongst children in the care of the French child protection system: an exploratory study.

International audienceThe aim of this pilot study is to identify the best way of preventing and assessing thelivelihood and risk of school dropout amongst children entrusted to the care of theFrench child protection system in the De´partement of Rhone. The sample comprised91 children and adolescents aged 4- to 17-years-old, of whom 45 were girls. The datawere gathered using a unique report including the items evaluating sociodemographicdata and the School Dropout Risk Evaluation Questionnaire. The results show that theolder these children get, the more they see their academic problems as revolvingaround themselves. The youngest amongst them attribute their problems to the quality of approach adopted in the environment while the older children tend to view them-selves as the reason for their failure. Collaborative efforts are therefore necessarybetween all actors in order to prevent school dropout and to provide interventionas early as possible