Email from Bishopric

[Thinking]

My mother received the following email on Sunday. The language seems to indicate that it was initiated by the school district and forwarded.

 

Quote

Grief Processing Presentation

Monday, January 28th  6:00PM

Washington County has suffered the loss of several youth this year, with the most recent tragedy affecting students at several schools. We are concerned that our students may not know how to process so much loss in such a short amount of time. To help us help our students, Tami Curtis, District Social Emotional Learning Coordinator, will be holding a brief presentation on processing grief for parents and students on Monday, January 28th. We want to make a proactive effort at helping our students anyway we can. Please join us in our efforts to help our students through the grieving process. We hope this information will be helpful to you and your student.

Desert Hills High School - Lecture Hall B at 6:00 PM

Does anybody know more information? If you do, please don't share the victims' names.

Edited January 29, 2019 by Thinking

[bluebell]

The only thing that I can find is an article from November about a teenage girl who died in a head on collision in Washington Co.

[LoudmouthMormon]

This is becoming standard practice whenever a group of kids loses a peer.  When it's from suicide, and especially when there's more than one loss, it gets pretty dang important to process this stuff.  The danger is without some good professional guidance, suicide can be internalized as the 'new normal', a viable option, because little bobby did it, and little suzie did it, so why not me?  Peer pressure sucks.  Yes, the home is the absolute best place to process this, but schools and churches have to try to help. 

Here in Colorado, my kid's school brought in a counselor after a student had lost a long battle to cancer. 

Edited January 29, 2019 by LoudmouthMormon

[Jane_Doe]

2 hours ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

This is becoming standard practice whenever a group of kids loses a peer.  When it's from suicide, and especially when there's more than one loss, it gets pretty dang important to process this stuff.  The danger is without some good professional guidance, suicide can be internalized as the 'new normal', a viable option, because little bobby did it, and little suzie did it, so why not me?  Peer pressure sucks.  Yes, the home is the absolute best place to process this, but schools and churches have to try to help. 

Here in Colorado, my kid's school brought in a counselor after a student had lost a long battle to cancer. 

That has been my observation as well.  Loss hit people's hard, and it is now standard practice (and a generally good idea) to have a counselor on hand to help guide people through these hard times.  

[Thinking]

4 hours ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

When it's from suicide, and especially when there's more than one loss, it gets pretty dang important to process this stuff.

The word several is what caught my attention. It's concerning to think that so many youth feel like there's no hope.

[ksfisher]

25 minutes ago, Thinking said:

The word several is what caught my attention. It's concerning to think that so many youth feel like there's no hope.

The email doesn't actually mention how the students passed away, does it? 

I recall one year in high school we lost 5 classmates, but it was all traffic accident related.

[Thinking]

31 minutes ago, ksfisher said:

The email doesn't actually mention how the students passed away, does it? 

I recall one year in high school we lost 5 classmates, but it was all traffic accident related.

No it doesn't. I do suspect, however, that there are some suicides among the several.

[LoudmouthMormon]

1 hour ago, Thinking said:

The word several is what caught my attention. It's concerning to think that so many youth feel like there's no hope.

Yes.  In our stake, we had a kid commit suicide, then a year later a second kid from another family, then after that a second kid from the same family.  Total of three in a 4-5 year span.  Both families were devastated, but the family who had two sons off themselves are like 10X devastated.  I can't even imagine.

Yes indeed, it's important to take our kids after stuff happens, and crack those brains open and get them talking and processing.  I don't know how much of that happened (or didn't happen) with these kids.

Edited January 29, 2019 by LoudmouthMormon

[Tacenda]

6 hours ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

Yes.  In our stake, we had a kid commit suicide, then a year later a second kid from another family, then after that a second kid from the same family.  Total of three in a 4-5 year span.  Both families were devastated, but the family who had two sons off themselves are like 10X devastated.  I can't even imagine.

Yes indeed, it's important to take our kids after stuff happens, and crack those brains open and get them talking and processing.  I don't know how much of that happened (or didn't happen) with these kids.

There is a family in my new neighborhood that just built their home as well and their 16 year old committed suicide a few months ago. I can't imagine what they are going through. He hung himself in their brand new home.

[Hestia]

Because speculating about suicide can be dangerous, and there is no actual evidence, we are going to close this thread.