Dr. Nancy Boyd Webb's Tripartite Assessment
Dr. Nancy Boyd Webb's Tripartite Assessment is designed to ascertain factors that influence the response of a child or adolescent to a loss. The Hospice Foundation of America offers this as an example of an appropriate protocol for assessing grief in children. Assessment tools such as this should be used by trained clinicians.
Assessment of a bereaved child involves consideration of three groups of factors:
- Individual factors
- Factors related to the death
- Family, social, religious/cultural factors
All of these interact and must be evaluated in order to appreciate fully the bereavement experience of a given individual.
This figure (PDF) illustrates the components and interaction among the three sets of variables.
Dr. Boyd Webb suggests a referral to mental health intervention when children:
- have a life-threatening illness;
- may have already been identified as emotionally disturbed;
- are developmentally disabled or delayed;
- seem "frozen" in their grief and unable to function or return to normal activities;
- or exhibit "red flag" behaviors such as suicidal hints, behaviors destructive of self or others, difficulties in schoolwork, nightmares or sleep disorders, changes in eating patterns or other activities, or regressive behaviors.
From Webb, Helping Bereaved Children (2002, pp 29-30). Copyright 2002 by The Guilford Press. Reprinted by permission of the publisher and author.
