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Sammanfattning

The Palliative Team at Aarhus has experienced an increasing demand for counselling parents about children's reactions to serious disease in the family. Since 2004, the Palliative Team has also held group discussions for children who have lost a parent. It is our experience that there is a need to improve communication among siblings, and between parents and children. The family counselling project COSIP (Children Of Somatically Ill Parents) has developed a counselling approach that focuses on psychosocial support for families where one parent has cancer. This approach has been adapted and implemented by the Palliative Team. The project's objective is to promote the family's and especially the children's well-being via such discussions. Three sessions are offered: one for parents, one for children and a summary session for the whole family. Qualified staff are responsible for framing and directing the discussions. A descriptive study of the project has been prepared based on minutes from the first ten sessions. The following captions summarise the lessons learned from the conversations: They build a framework in which feelings can be openly expressed and discussed, which provides a common basis for closeness and nurturing. Maintaining daily routines despite the loss and lack of the ill parent is important Having a feeling of togetherness in the family makes future perspectives more manageable. The family discussions are viewed as a nursing intervention permitting interdisciplinary collaboration among nurses and psychologists/clergy.

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