Last November, 20 parents from the Finglas area became certified "Rainbows Facilitators" - qualified to work with children suffering bereavement. The north Dublin suburb of Finglas has a population of more than 35,000 people - pretty much twice the size of your average Irish town. Nonetheless, parents living locally have grown increasingly concerned about the lack of facilities for children and young people suffering a loss, be it through death, separation or divorce.

Bernie Hughes, one of the course participants, has three children aged four to eight. "In a situation like separation, or if there is a bereavement in the family, the parents are often in too much pain themselves to meet their children's needs. It can happen that children who don't get an opportunity to express their feelings at the time get into trouble later on in life, maybe suffering from depression, or possibly taking drugs. "There is very little around here for children who are grieving, so we felt it would be a good idea to set up a facility ourselves."

Frank Houlihan is the homeschool-community liaison co-ordinator at Mater Christi secondary school in Finglas. He looked around for courses which the parents could take and discovered Rainbows, an American programme co-ordinated in Ireland by Brother Willie Morgan.

"The course took place over a Friday evening and all day the following Saturday," Houlihan explains. "We watched videos relevant to the course, did role-play workshops and generally learned about facilitating children and young people suffering loss. It is primarily a course about listening - we wouldn't be counselling, more offering an opportunity to the children to talk about things."

Sheila Keogh has lost two of her 10 children, aged between 39 and 19. "Doing the course was quite tough at times. It brings up a lot of memories you have yourself, but I would like to work with children who feel this kind of loss. On the course we talked about how you can't make the pain go away, but you can help."

The way the smallest gesture can mean so much to children who are grieving was something all the parents in the group were struck by. "I think I realised how we all have something to give, just by listening," Bernie Hughes says. "There are so many adults who are like `walking wounded' from losses they've suffered themselves during their lives. Now they are trying to bring up their own children, never having had a chance to deal with their pain. "We would just be giving children in our area that chance. These are the parents of the future, and offering this kind of support at as early a stage as possible can help prevent problems for them later in their lives."

Dolores Smith has three children aged between 14 and 21. "While I was doing the course, I suddenly realised things about my own children," she says. "I had thought that we had all dealt with a bereavement in my family, but talking about how feelings of loss can show, such as through headaches or ulcers, I realised my children had been more deeply affected than I thought. But it gave me the opportunity to go back to them and see what they might still need to discuss."

Winnie McDonagh has four children aged 12 to 23 and is the education officer with a group of travellers in Finglas. "I have noticed, through the work that I do, that children's feelings actually often run a lot deeper than adults', because they don't have the ability to rationalise things in the way that older people do. "But more importantly, I realised doing the course that people all react differently to similar situations. You have to learn to be totally unjudgmental, and very sensitive."

The parents are now looking into ways of setting up "sites" where they can offer support to children. Run over 12 to 14 weeks, the Rainbows programme is designed to meet the needs of different age groups in group settings of four or five. The adults each give an hour of their time each week. "I'm sure it will be difficult at times," says Valerie Duffy, whose two children are aged six and 10. "But if I get upset listening to a child talking about something very painful, it's okay. "It's not okay to bring my feelings home and allow them to affect my own family. We are planning to have the opportunity to talk about any upsetting things that come up when we've finished each session. Obviously the children's confidentiality is essential, so we would just discuss our own feelings in relation to something that came up, not the details of what was raised - and certainly not naming any of the children."

The parents were able to participate on the course through funding they received from the Edmund Rice Foundation. "We still have some of the funding left," says Houlihan, "so we will be able to buy materials for the children, such as the workbooks designed by the Rainbows programme - and, for the time being, give them a snack during each session. But we will have to find some way of getting ongoing funding if we are going to keep this initiative up and running."