Rebecca Wills continues to cope with her step-father's death

Support for grieving young people has been criticised as "patchy" in a report for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. One teenager explains how she copes with death.

Rebecca Wills, 17, fell to the floor when told of her step-father's death two and a half years ago.

Clint, who had been with Rebecca's mother Clare for 10 years, died suddenly in a motorbike accident in November 2002.

Rebecca said: "My initial thought - and this sounds a bit rough - was 'how are we going to cope, we've got no money?'"

Clint was the main breadwinner and about to graduate with the hopes of a better job.

But then came the sadness for Rebecca, the worry about her twin three-year-old siblings left fatherless, and now the anger.

While saying that she has coped with the sudden death of a man who had been in her life since she was five years old, she says her mother is still grieving.

"My main priority was my little brother and sister. There were lots of people looking after my mum and I was left to look after them, but I have coped pretty well."

I coped with the death, but the repercussions of the death continue Rebecca Wills Young 'need better grief help'

Support from family and friends was "great", and after a week off school she concentrated on her GCSEs.

Her school offered her counselling but she has a mixed opinion of its usefulness.

"The counsellor was good, she let me talk about things, about anything that was bothering me," Rebecca said.

But the counsellor was not a specialist in dealing with grief, and Rebecca felt "it would have been helpful if someone had been brought in".

Repercussions

Another complaint was the fact that her teacher told everyone why Rebecca had been off school.

"I would have appreciated if they had kept quiet, I didn't want the whole year knowing."

Now about to start college, Rebecca is considering returning to counselling.

"I coped with the death, but the repercussions of the death continue. My mother doesn't cope and it backfires on me. I think about it and some days I get upset.

"It makes me quite angry because she's got kids to look after.

"I think that's why I've got to see a counsellor - I've just got so much anger towards everything."

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But the first obstacle she faces is finding where the counselling is.

"There should be more advertising - I guess I'll just have to find out on the internet or in magazines."

Part of her grieving involved writing a poem about her loss about six months after the death.

"I was feeling quite down and had already been writing some poems, sort of short things. It was called Tragedy and was about how I coped with it and how I was feeling.

"Towards the end it says that you can cope but never forget."