Abstract Compassionate Bereavement Support for Staff in Hospital School Settings: Collaborative Insights from The Hospital School, Westmead and Sydney Children’s Hospital School Hospital schools serve a critical role in providing educational continuity for children with serious health conditions. Staff within these specialised educational environments frequently build profound emotional connections with students and their families, making the experience of bereavement uniquely challenging. Recognising the emotional toll, both The Hospital School, Westmead and the Sydney Children’s Hospital School have developed comprehensive, contextually sensitive bereavement support frameworks aimed at fostering staff resilience, compassion, and self-care. Central to the Sydney Children’s Hospital School’s approach is the innovative “Butterfly News” system—an email notification mechanism underpinned by ancient Greek symbolism, where the butterfly represents the soul’s journey and transformation. This symbolic, discreet method respects staff members’ diverse grieving processes by allowing them to access bereavement information privately and at a personally appropriate time. Complementing this, group support sessions and psychological counselling are promptly made available to ensure holistic emotional care. At The Hospital School, Westmead, recent infrastructural advances, including the establishment of a dedicated palliative care wing, have heightened staff exposure to grief. In response, bespoke Bereavement Procedures have been operationalised to reflect the hospital context’s complexities. Both schools have benefitted from a pilot “proactive” wellbeing program, co-designed with clinical psychologists, which aims to build resilience and improve psychosocial outcomes tailored to each setting’s unique demands. This presentation synthesises the collaborative policy development and implementation, emphasising culturally sensitive communication and trauma-informed care paradigms. Framed within international research on grief and trauma in educational healthcare environments (Meagher & Balk, 2010; Dyregrov, 2008), it highlights global best practices advocating flexible communication, timely psychological support, and respect for individual grieving timelines as essential to sustaining staff wellbeing and delivering quality education to vulnerable children (Christ, Siegel & Christ, 2018; Winston & Kassam-Adams, 2020). Attendees will gain practical insights on integrating culturally meaningful bereavement strategies and resilience-building initiatives into hospital school settings, supporting staff to navigate the emotional complexities of their professional roles. This session contributes to the international dialogue on enhancing bereavement care and wellbeing support for educational staff confronting loss in paediatric healthcare contexts. ________________________________________ Selected References • Christ, G. H., Siegel, K., & Christ, A. E. (2018). Paediatric Bereavement: A Family-Centred Approach. Death Studies, 42(4), 203-211. https://doi.org/10.1080/07481187.2017.1365618 • Dyregrov, K. (2008). Grief in Children: A Handbook for Adults. Jessica Kingsley Publishers. • Meagher, M., & Balk, D. (2010). Death, Dying, and Bereavement: Perspectives for the Helping Professions. Springer Publishing. • Winston, F. K., & Kassam-Adams, N. (2020). The Role of Trauma-Informed Care in Paediatric Health Settings. Paediatrics, 146(6), e20200215. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2020-0215