RT Article
T1 Driven by Purpose: Exploring Spirituality in Black Mothers’ Coping with Loss of Children to Gun Homicide
JF Homicide studies
VO 29
IS 1
SP 45
OP 65
A1 Bailey, Annette
A1 Boakye, Priscilla
A1 Esak, Nadia
A1 Johar, Muna
A1 Velasco, Divine
A1 Leung, Clarina
A2 Boakye, Priscilla
A2 Esak, Nadia
A2 Johar, Muna
A2 Velasco, Divine
A2 Leung, Clarina
LA English
YR 2025
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1915724384
AB The death of a Black child to gun homicide presents unique and ongoing coping challenges for Black parents. Current studies have provided insights into the role of spirituality in facilitating adjustment after homicide loss. However, the extent to which spirituality serves as a viable coping resource for Black mothers, who are disproportionately affected by gun homicide deaths of their children, remains unexplored. This exploratory phenomenological study explored the role of spirituality as a healing resource in 15 Black mothers’ grief experiences following the loss of their children to gun homicide. Thematic analysis revealed the role of spirituality in helping Black mothers find purpose in their loss. Following the loss of their children, mothers’ spiritual values enabled them to come to the realization that the deaths served a purpose. Spirituality served as the fuel to strengthen and renew their purpose in their grief journey. Gun homicide grief experience is an entanglement of systemic inequality and racial oppression. Exploring spirituality as a coping resource in the grieving experiences of Black survivors serves as an opportunity for enhancing community-based, culturally relevant, and spiritually-informed interventions, to adequately meet their coping needs.
K1 Grief
K1 gun homicide
K1 Black mothers
K1 Religion
K1 Spirituality
DO 10.1177/10887679241285908