The five videos focus on local grief and loss services – GoTo, Young Minds, Regen:fx Youth Trust, Give us a break! and The GIVIT – and have been produced by the Springhall and Whitlawburn Youth Development Team (SWYDT).

The videos are all different, some sharing an individual’s story, others looking at what resources are available, but each one is ultimately aimed at helping children and young people cope with grief, loss and bereavement.

South Lanarkshire’s Inclusion as Prevention (IAP) project is sharing the videos to support conversations with children and young people around grief, bereavement and loss and the first one, which focuses on GoTo, a mental health support service for young people aged 14-18 in South Lanarkshire, is now available for download from the IaP website.

Kiera Irvine, IAP’s Engagement Coordinator, said: “With some of the SWYDT group having already experienced loss, they were keen to share their thoughts and experiences to help others going through the same situation.

“They felt that adults didn’t always take their grief seriously, and that they were discouraged from talking about it, as grief is still seen by many as a taboo subject. They wanted to challenge this, and also help children and young people to understand that there’s no ‘right or wrong’ way to grieve. Everyone experiences grief differently - and it’s absolutely OK to use humour!

“The group also felt that, although there are already so many great services available to them, young people don’t always know about them as the services tend to be marketed towards staff such as teachers and youth workers.

“Although this has its benefits and is great for some young people to find out about support in this way, the group felt that there are also a lot of young people who may not always show signs of suffering and/or who would rather help themselves. As a result, the group decided that they would like to support organisations to market their work to young people from the voice of young people.”

The videos certainly reflect the perspective of the young people, with the group themselves taking on all aspects of the work before the technical aspects of putting their plans on screen.

Kiera explained: “The group agreed that producing videos would be a good way of sharing these messages, in an accessible, relatable and colourful way.  They did all the hard work from the start, making a list of services to approach, coming up with the right questions to ensure they had a thorough understanding of what is involved in each service, and then writing the scripts, drawing storyboards and even recording their own voiceovers.

“These young people have done an incredible job and we can’t wait to share their videos with the world.”

Graphic artist Sarah Ahmad, known as The Floating Designer, was chosen by the young people as being the best fit for their project and was commissioned to produce the final videos, using the storyboards and ideas provided by the SWYDT team.

The videos will be launched on an individual basis as they are ready, and shared widely across organisations, workplaces, education and community settings, and more.

Kiera added: “I would encourage everyone to share these videos with the children and young people they know or work with and, if posting on social media, I’d be grateful if people could include the hashtag #letstalkloss.

“We really do feel that these can make a big difference to the lives of young people who are maybe feeling a little lost, and we want as many of them as possible to find out about them.”