New Resources: Mental Health Providers’ Guide on Children Affected by Family Member’s Death Sentence or Execution

Children of fam­i­ly mem­bers who have been sen­tenced to death or exe­cut­ed are among the most hid­den trau­ma vic­tims of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. To help address their unique men­tal health needs, the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN), an orga­ni­za­tion ded­i­cat­ed ​“to rais[ing] the stan­dard of care and improv[ing] access to ser­vices for trau­ma­tized chil­dren, their fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ties through­out the United States,” has released a new treat­ment resource that offers guid­ance to pro­fes­sion­als who work with chil­dren affect­ed by the death penalty.

The men­tal health guide, Children Who Are Impacted by a Family Member’s Death Sentence or Execution: Information for Mental Health Professionals, was pro­duced in asso­ci­a­tion with Clinical & Support Options Inc. and the Texas After Violence Project and was released in December 2021. It pro­vides assis­tance to men­tal health inves­ti­ga­tors and providers in iden­ti­fy­ing issues faced by chil­dren whose par­ent or oth­er fam­i­ly mem­ber are on death row or have been executed. 

The guide helps ser­vice providers rec­og­nize the numer­ous types of trau­ma the chil­dren may be expe­ri­enc­ing and the com­pli­cat­ed emo­tions with which they are deal­ing. It then offers sug­ges­tions on ways to sup­port the chil­dren in deal­ing with their feel­ings. A child with a fam­i­ly mem­ber on death row is like­ly to ​“be expe­ri­enc­ing cycles of emo­tion­al ups and downs as their fam­i­ly mem­ber goes through the death penal­ty lit­i­ga­tion process,” the NCTSN guide says, which can last many years and ​“include repeat­ed cycles of exe­cu­tion date, last-minute stay of exe­cu­tion, and then anoth­er exe­cu­tion date.” It rec­om­mends that providers ​“rec­og­nize the effect of this roller­coast­er on the child’s and fam­i­ly mem­bers’ men­tal and phys­i­cal health and take that into account in diag­no­sis, treat­ment plan­ning, and psychoeducation.”

The death penalty’s trau­mat­ic impact on a child can be sig­nif­i­cant and long-last­ing, NCTSN warns, ​“even when an exe­cu­tion hap­pened before the child was born, or in cas­es where the famil­ial con­nec­tion was not close.” 

The emo­tion­al­ly dam­ag­ing events these chil­dren have expe­ri­enced include hav­ing ​“wit­nessed oth­ers call­ing for or cheer­ing their fam­i­ly member’s death.“ It cites as an exam­ple: ​“one daugh­ter recalled that after her father’s exe­cu­tion, a friend said, ​‘I don’t under­stand why you feel bad, he got what he deserved.’” The chil­dren may not feel like they have the “’right to grieve,’” may feel “’guilty by asso­ci­a­tion,’” and ​“expe­ri­ence stig­ma, judg­ment, and exclu­sion from nat­ur­al sup­ports such as faith or social com­mu­ni­ties.” They may ​“have been shamed, harassed, or exclud­ed by oth­ers … for hav­ing a fam­i­ly mem­ber who is on death row or has been executed.”

Mental health pro­fes­sion­als should be aware of these dynam­ics and may need to ​“exam­ine [their] own beliefs and feel­ings about the death penal­ty in gen­er­al or this case in par­tic­u­lar, with out­side sup­port if need­ed, so that [they] can main­tain a non-judg­men­tal and sup­port­ive stance toward the child and the child’s fam­i­ly.” They should ​“con­sid­er ways to sig­nal wel­come and inclu­sion at the start” and ​“com­mu­ni­cate wel­come and acceptance.”

Children affect­ed by the death penal­ty may ​“feel a sense of con­stant threat engen­dered by the fam­i­ly member’s death sen­tence.” They may ​“have dis­tort­ed or lim­it­ed infor­ma­tion about their fam­i­ly member’s alleged crime or death sen­tence.” Because of this, NCTSN says, the men­tal health pro­fes­sion­al should ask the child’s care­givers what the child knows and does not know. 

A fam­i­ly mem­ber on death row may cause the child to ​“have com­pli­cat­ed and shift­ing feel­ings …, includ­ing lov­ing them, being angry, feel­ing ambiva­lent or con­flict­ed” and the child may ​“want dif­fer­ent types of con­tact with the fam­i­ly mem­ber at dif­fer­ent times.” Mental health pro­fes­sion­als should ​“nor­mal­ize a child’s expe­ri­enc­ing con­flict­ing and ambiva­lent feel­ings” and ​“help chil­dren under­stand their options for con­tact: let­ters, phone calls, vis­its; lim­it­ed or no con­tact; right to change fre­quen­cy or type of con­tact any time; right to choose who they want involved or sup­port­ing them in nav­i­gat­ing deci­sions and logis­tics about contact.”

Even where chil­dren do not them­selves have a close con­nec­tion to the fam­i­ly mem­ber who is on death row or has been exe­cut­ed, they may be adverse­ly affect­ed by the impact on oth­er fam­i­ly mem­bers and those rel­a­tives’ ​“pre­oc­cu­pa­tion and involve­ment with that individual’s death sen­tence or execution.”