Skip to content
The Archive of The Carrboro Citizen
Menu
  • Home
  • News
  • Community
  • Schools
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Obituaries
  • Sports
  • Mill
  • Flora
  • Print Archive
  • About
Menu

Carrboro High School faces grief with collective effort

Posted on October 2, 2008 by Staff

Jasmina Nogo
Courtesy of the Carrboro Commons

Counselors at Carrboro High School assist their students in times of grief, crisis and confusion. Although there isn’t a formal grief counseling program yet, the first student-support group will meet on Tuesday.

The tragic death of Chapel Hill High School student and football player, Atlas Fraley, only two weeks before school started, affected the lives of many students who went to school with Fraley before they transferred to Carrboro High.

“We started to have enough students suffering and decided that this would be appropriate for a group, if they’re interested,” said Linda Bos, student-assistance program counselor at Carrboro High.

With only 770 students and no formalized grief support, the counselors at Carrboro High are not set up for long-term treatment, Bos said. Students who require ongoing treatment are usually referred out.

However, this year Bos has been in contact with William Holloman from the Duke Bereavement Community Center in Hillsborough, and the counselors are planning to have him offer a grief support group to students who are interested.

The group is due to begin meeting early this month and will meet for approximately six weeks, with availability for continued meetings if needed.

“The group is intended to give teens an opportunity to sit with each other and talk about what it felt like to lose someone to death,” Holloman said.

The grief support group will give students an alternative for dealing with their problems.

“People deal differently with grief. They could be fine at school and show no indications,” Bos said.

The Kübler-Ross grief model, Bos said, is used by many psychologists in dealing with grief.

According to Changingminds.org, the model was introduced by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in her 1969 book On Death and Dying. It describes an oscillating cycle of emotional states that is often referred to as the “grief cycle.” The theory behind this model is that sufferers of grief may be at any of several stages of dealing with their grief – shock, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, testing or acceptance – and that therapists and counselors must be aware of the effects of these stages.

Molly Acuff, 17, a senior at Carrboro High from Massachusetts, is familiar with the emotional support that counselors provide.

“They’re really good at responding to students’ needs, whatever they are,” she said. “The door to the counselor’s office is open whenever students need help.”

Several of Acuff’s friends are seeking grief support from the school’s counselors after Fraley’s death. She said the counselors are incredibly devoted to helping these students deal with their pain.

“I think that it’s made things a lot easier at Carrboro High,” Acuff said.

“Our school has had a tense environment, and our counselors make things better.”

Students come to counselors on their own or are referred to them by teachers, faculty, administrators, parents or peers. The counselors try to involve as many people who are part of the student’s life to provide a collective support effort.

“All of the counselors try to involve parents as much as possible when needed, so that all are on the same page, especially when a student is dealing with social-emotional issues, such as grief,” Bos said.

Carrboro High has various counseling positions and each counselor is trained to deal with their area of expertise. Bos is a licensed clinical social worker and has been prepared for social-emotional counseling through her training.

“I’ve had several students who have suffered a significant loss in their lives,” she said. “Many students come to our attention for other reasons, and then we discover that there is underlying grief.”

“To talk openly about something as serious as death is something students aren’t given the opportunity to do that often,” Holloman said.

Through the Student Support Team, counselors hold individual sessions with students to ascertain needs, and work with teachers and parents to come up with strategies and “wrap-around” support tailored to each student, Bos said.

A friend of Acuff’s, whom students refer to as “Fire,” sought grief counseling from the school’s counselors. They became so involved with his problems and needs that they took him shopping and bought him a new outfit to cheer him up, said Acuff.

“They’re deeply involved with their students. It’s not just a job for them,” she said.

Whether through group therapy, individual sessions or referrals to outside professionals, students at Carrboro High are getting the attention they seek.

Jasmina Nogo is a UNC student writing for the Carrboro Commons, a bi-weekly online lab newspaper for Jock Lauterer’s Community Journalism class at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

Web Archive

© 2025 The Archive of The Carrboro Citizen | Powered by Minimalist Blog WordPress Theme