
{"id":3548,"date":"2008-10-02T07:43:05","date_gmt":"2008-10-02T15:43:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=3548"},"modified":"2008-10-02T07:43:05","modified_gmt":"2008-10-02T15:43:05","slug":"carrboro-high-school-faces-grief-with-collective-effort","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2008\/10\/02\/carrboro-high-school-faces-grief-with-collective-effort\/","title":{"rendered":"Carrboro High School faces grief with collective effort"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Jasmina Nogo<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>Courtesy of the Carrboro Commons<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Counselors at Carrboro High School assist their students in times of grief, crisis and confusion. Although there isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t a formal grief counseling program yet, the first student-support group will meet on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>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.<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We started to have enough students suffering and decided that this would be appropriate for a group, if they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re interested,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Linda Bos, student-assistance program counselor at Carrboro High.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>The group is due to begin meeting early this month and will meet for approximately six weeks, with availability for continued meetings if needed.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The 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,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Holloman said.<\/p>\n<p>The grief support group will give students an alternative for dealing with their problems.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153People deal differently with grief. They could be fine at school and show no indications,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Bos said.<\/p>\n<p>The K\u00c3\u00bcbler-Ross grief model, Bos said, is used by many psychologists in dealing with grief.<\/p>\n<p>According to Changingminds.org, the model was introduced by Elisabeth K\u00c3\u00bcbler-Ross in her 1969 book On Death and Dying. It describes an oscillating cycle of emotional states that is often referred to as the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153grief cycle.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d The theory behind this model is that sufferers of grief may be at any of several stages of dealing with their grief \u00e2\u20ac\u201c shock, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, testing or acceptance \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and that therapists and counselors must be aware of the effects of these stages.<\/p>\n<p>Molly Acuff, 17, a senior at Carrboro High from Massachusetts, is familiar with the emotional support that counselors provide.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re really good at responding to students\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 needs, whatever they are,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The door to the counselor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s office is open whenever students need help.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Several of Acuff\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s friends are seeking grief support from the school\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s counselors  after Fraley\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s death. She said the counselors are incredibly devoted to helping these students deal with their pain.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I think that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s made things a lot easier at Carrboro High,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Acuff said. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Our school has had a tense environment, and our counselors make things better.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life to provide a collective support effort.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153All 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,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Bos said.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve had several students who have suffered a significant loss in their lives,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Many students come to our attention for other reasons, and then we discover that there is underlying grief.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153To talk openly about something as serious as death is something students aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t given the opportunity to do that often,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Holloman said.<\/p>\n<p>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 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153wrap-around\u00e2\u20ac\u009d support tailored to each student, Bos said.<\/p>\n<p>A friend of Acuff\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s, whom students refer to as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Fire,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d sought grief counseling from the school\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re deeply involved with their students. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not just a job for them,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Whether through group therapy, individual sessions or referrals to outside professionals, students at Carrboro High are getting the attention they seek.<\/p>\n<p><em>Jasmina Nogo is a UNC student writing for the Carrboro Commons, a bi-weekly online lab newspaper for Jock Lauterer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Community Journalism class at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t 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&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-schools"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3548\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}