Help evolves with evacuees' needs

[TexasStooge]

North Texas school districts shift focus to emotional support

By KATHERINE LEAL UNMUTH / The Dallas Morning News

IRVING, Texas – Twelve-year-old Todd McNeel sat in a circle with other middle school students and wrote three words on a balloon: advice, courage and patience.

The terms came during a brainstorming session among young evacuees looking for ways to work through their ordeal.

More than a month after Hurricane Katrina, local school districts are moving beyond distributing donations such as school uniforms and canned foods to organizing counseling for students and their parents to help them weather the emotional storm.

"At first, they were in survival mode, finding food, finding shelter," said Rosie Mendez, Grand Prairie schools' coordinator for safe and drug-free schools. "Their basic needs were more important. Now it's time for them to deal with the emotional aftermath."

About 30 counselors in Irving volunteered one night last week to lead support groups at The Academy High School. They provided a spaghetti dinner and stuffed animals, then divided about 200 evacuee students and their parents into smaller groups by age.

District officials say it was a one-time event, but counselors are planning weekly after-school support groups at schools with the highest number of evacuees. About 430 evacuees are enrolled in Irving schools.

Richardson and Arlington school districts have tapped retired counselors to provide counseling and support groups for evacuee students. Plano counselors are conducting coffee gatherings for parents. Grand Prairie counselors volunteer at weekly support groups, where students got journals to write about their feelings. Dallas schools have a crisis team of about 60 counselors.

Wayne Denton, a psychiatrist and director of the Family Studies Center at UT Southwestern, said it's a good sign that schools are providing preventive care instead of waiting until a crisis develops. He said groups are probably the best medium.

"It will be important for the schools to provide such services because a lot of the problems will show up in the schools," he said. "A lot of children will have behavioral and learning problems."

Pat Melton, executive director of guidance, counseling and staff development for Arlington schools, said that about 10 counselors have been hired for two months to provide small weekly support group sessions for three to five students at a time.

"It's a long-term situation, and it's not just come in and do a little counseling session for a few kids," she said. "You have to do follow-up. We want there to be six to 10 sessions where the same person is listening to the students' issues so there's a relationship built."

Providing extra services can be hard on cash-strapped districts.

Lupita Garcia, Irving's director of parent and student support services, said the district had no money for the support group night, so counselors volunteered.

"There are so many needs," Ms. Garcia said. "It's pretty daunting for us. It's almost like we are going to have to find a balance as helpers as well. We've spent all these days focusing on [430] students, and we've got 33,000 in the district."

In Richardson, Deputy Superintendent Patti Kieker said nine part-time counselors have been hired. "We hope we may be reimbursed for it, but we felt like the needs of the kids came first," she said.

At the Irving group session, Todd, the 12-year-old, told of how frightened he was to be separated from his mother at a Metairie, La., high school shelter. His mother, who was eight months pregnant, thought she was going into premature labor and was taken from the shelter. It was a false alarm, though, and she returned two hours later.

The family settled in Irving after their home was flooded.

"Everyone shared their feelings," said Todd, now enrolled at Houston Middle School. "It's nice to see other kids going through what we are."

In another group, 6- and 7-year-olds drew pictures and completed simple sentences about their feelings.

Eldridge Davidson, 7, wrote: "My best memory is ... before the hurricane."

Gabrielle Tolliver, 7, wrote: "I went to Irving ... it was scary. I lost my toys and clothes."

One girl colored her paper with blue crayon – the hurricane, she said.

Many middle school students talked about being picked on and about their frustrations in a new environment. The Irving schools are about 63 percent Latino and 13 percent black. New Orleans public schools were about 94 percent black.

"They listen to different music. Their culture is different," said 13-year-old Courtney Clark, who is from the Ninth Ward neighborhood in New Orleans and enrolled at Houston Middle School.

Some parents said their children were getting into arguments at school or being hyperactive. Many requested help in getting their children to accept change.

Michael Brown, who survived a flood in Pennsylvania years ago and does some counseling for the district, challenged high school students to get involved in the activities they participated in at their old schools.

Jasmine Myers, 17, now enrolled at MacArthur High School, vigorously shook her head. In her New Orleans high school, she danced with the Jazzy Olympians. Clutching a teddy bear with wings and a halo, her eyes teared up.

"It's not the same," she said. "We marched there. It was like Mardi Gras. ... This is not my home."

The Tambe family also sought help at the Irving session.

Ewane Tambe, 14, has cerebral palsy and uses a manual wheelchair provided by the district. His motorized chair was in the shop the weekend of the hurricane.

For several days he, his two brothers and his father slept in a car. Their mother refused to leave their house and later was evacuated by boat past dead bodies.

Madeline Tambe, 44, said that talking with a psychiatrist about the grieving process helped her understand her emotions.

"They put names to what I was feeling," she said. "Sometimes you try to deny it. It gave me a little freedom to say it's OK and it's normal."