Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Copyright, 2001, Los Angeles Times. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved. Obtain additional permission by typing http://www.icopyright.com/1.528.2001
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the counseling at school was making things They encountered every symptom of 20 years. This was like nothing I’ve ever seen
easier. "Groups don’t usually talk to each traumatic stress they could imagine. Some before."
other," she said. But now they were. students are beating themselves up because Most of the families will never see a bill
The counselors have come from all they didn’t grab the gun from Williams’ hand, for all this therapy.
over, including the Red Cross, the San Moore said. For the first, intense, week, various
Diego County departments of education and Others, friends of Williams, are torn with agencies lent staff counselors.
mental health, and the U.S. Department of confusion and guilt. Some refuse to talk about Now the U.S. Department of Education
Education. Counselors in private practice it, staying in their bedrooms. has offered grant money to keep therapists
answered urgent pages or, like Nancy North, For some students, the shooting ripped on campus, and families can also apply for
called and volunteered. Some flew into town, open holes, allowing past traumas to come as much as $10,000 in state funds from
but most live near San Diego. flooding back in. the Victim Witness program for private
Before counselors were allowed to see There was the boy who had scooped up a counseling. For many therapists in Santee,
any students, district officials evaluated their fellow student as the bullets flew, helping his the idea of payment was as obscene as the
credentials. You can’t be too careful, said bleeding friend to safety. bullets ripping across school hallways.
Loretta Middleton of the San Diego County But now he was haunted, not just reliving "It’s a crisis, and the community needs to
Office of Education. the gunfire, but also a beating as a child. The come together," said North, who saw patients
After another school shooting a few years two incidents had linked in his head, forming in her El Cajon office in the evenings, grabbed
ago, a Tarot card reader showed up and a traumatic prison he could not escape. catnaps on her couch and spent her days
offered her services, said Cheri Lovre, a And then there was the student, once working with students in Santee.
nationally recognized trauma expert. a user of marijuana and methamphetamine, For many therapists, the work was its own
Across their lapels, right below their who had successfully completed a drug reward.
name tags, the counselors affixed bright shiny treatment course. Now, for the first time in Many evenings, Moore gathers his wife
dots, connoting their specialties so panicked two years, he was feeling urges to use. and two sons around him. Family has rarely
teenagers could find someone suited to their Without hesitation, Moore opened his seemed so important.
needs. own wallet and drew out a coin, given to him And the aftermath at Santee has given
And within a day, the therapists, like the to commemorate 19 years of his own sobriety. him a new appreciation for the strength of
athletes and the cheerleaders, had formed He pressed it into the boy’s palm. the human spirit, and of community bonds.
their own campus clique: "We’re the dot The student’s insistence that his therapists A personal victory: A football player,
people," said Moore, who gave up two could never understand him melted, Moore who for days had walked around campus with
weeks of income from his private practice to said. The boy put the coin in his bag, next head hunched and face drawn, broke into a
volunteer in Santee. to his own talismans marking the first and smile last week at a joke.
In every corner of the campus, the second anniversaries of sobriety. To Moore’s "His life will never the same, but he
therapists found themselves tested — and knowledge, the boy has stayed off drugs. can laugh again," Moore said. "And for a
rewarded — as they rarely are in private "It made me feel wonderful," Moore said. therapist, there’s nothing more rewarding
practice. "I’ve been working with kids and trauma for than that."
Copyright, 2001, Los Angeles Times. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved. Obtain additional permission by typing http://www.icopyright.com/1.528.2001
000024231 into any browser window. iCopyright Clearance License 1.528.2001 000024231-4585