Being there: Counseling team helps students with grief

By Steve Hill
University Week

The piles of paperwork keep growing on Maggie Olona’s Schmitz Hall desk.

The director of the UW’s Student Counseling Center can’t find time for the more mundane tasks associated with her job, not during a week like the one beginning Jan. 29. Two UW students died during the week. Three died during the month of January. During tragic times Olona and her staff shift into crisis mode.

“The point is to get out and be helpful,” she said last week in between sessions at the affected residence halls. “Typically we’re there when the residents are told about the death.”

She was there Tuesday, Jan. 30 when about 50 students gathered in a Haggett Hall lounge to hear the sad news about Jeffrey Chastain, who was found dead under the Aurora Bridge the previous night. Her colleague, Maurice Warner, performed the same function on the same night at Hansee Hall when residents were told about the death of Lauren Elizabeth Keen, who died in her dorm room after feeling ill Sunday night.

“We usually talk to them a little bit about grief,” Olona said. “Essentially, we let them know we’re there and if they want to talk they can. If they don’t need us, that’s fine. They have friends and often they can just talk and process and get what they need to get with a good group of friends. You don’t need a counselor for that.”

Sometimes, however, the students do need a counselor. The Student Counseling Center offers bargain rates on individual counseling ($26), couples counseling ($31) and group sessions ($13). The center’s staff of 13 counselors and therapists can also offer help in a wide variety of areas - from eating disorders to career planning, from developing good study habits to treatments for seasonal affective disorder.

But when a student death occurs the office quickly mobilizes to help - free of charge - with those immediate needs. Often in instances following a student death, center staff will do an individual follow-up with a student. Those meetings are also free. In the days following the deaths of Keen and Chastain, Olona and Warner set up shop in the residence halls and waited for students in need to come to them.

“Mostly it’s our presence there that helps,” Olona said. “It helps for students to think, ‘Well if it gets bad enough Maggie’s right there. I can go talk to her if I need to, but I don’t feel I’m bad enough yet.’ And so sometimes it’s more of a security blanket.”

Steve Railsback, the resident director at Haggett Hall, says he’s the first line of defense in a crisis situation like a student death. But, he says, it’s the counseling center that provides students expert support following a tragedy like the two recent deaths.

“Especially in periods of crisis with events as significant as this, the students do take advantage of the service,” he said. “The counseling center and the residence halls have a strong relationship. Often when a significant crisis happens we talk right away and they’re very responsive.”

In fact, the campus police and residential directors across campus have Olona’s office, home and cell telephone numbers. She’s on duty 24 hours a day, seven days a week and there are occasions when she’s called in to immediately handle a crisis situation.

“As resident directors, we’re trained to handle situations like this, but not to deal with it in the long term,” said Ryan Mattfeld, the resident director at Hansee Hall, where Keen lived. “We’re Band-Aids in a sense. Maggie and Maurice, they’re the pros.”

And the students aren’t the only beneficiaries.

“They make sure we’re OK too,” Mattfeld said.

Student reactions to the death of a classmate run the gamut, according to Olona.

“Most of the students have a normal reaction to grief - it’s sad, it’s hard to get through, they have difficulty concentrating, some have problems with depression,” she said. In those instances, the routine stresses of being a college student can become overwhelming.

“They have trouble going to a class, writing a paper is really difficult for them and taking a test can be next to impossible. Right after something like this happens they’re kind of in shock and that can last for some time. But that’s a normal reaction.”

And fortunately, she says, the UW campus has a way of rallying to support the students in need. Often, at the request of the Office of the Vice President for Student Affairs, professors are asked to accommodate students’ needs during the grieving process. Usually they’ll extend deadlines or do whatever is needed to help, according to Olona.

“This campus is especially good, with professors being able to allow some room for the students to grieve if they’ve been through an experience like this,” she said. “The professors here have been outstanding.”

Olona said the counseling center also consults with UW faculty and staff.