Counselors uniquely helpful in saddest role
Larry Wilkerson - Staff
Tuesday, February 27, 2001

Until Monday, it had been a long time since Dee Ward had done the one part of her job that she wishes she never had to do, but sometimes must.

She's the head counselor at Brookwood High, and, for the past six years or so, had happily spent her workdays on matters routine in her profession. She showed students how to develop study skills and prepare for college or a career, guided them toward solutions to personal problems, things like that.

In that time, Ward and the other Brookwood counselors (seven of them, including one who works part time) had not had to help young people come to grips with sudden, senseless death and bewildering loss.

Then, early Saturday morning, two Lawrenceville teenagers --- one of them a Brookwood junior and the other a recent graduate --- died instantly in a head-on crash on Buford Highway.

Facing 'that empty desk'

The student, 17-year-old Ryan Powers, was riding with his friend Ben Raby, 19. The Honda they were in was going too fast, police said, when it went out of control on a curve and slammed into another car.

"Most of the students knew it before they came to school," said Brookwood principal Connie Corley. "But it becomes real when they walk in and see that empty desk --- it hits them in a different way."

A sensitive and sorrowful job then awaits a group of special people in schools: the counselors.

"We tell them we have no answers, that we can't tell them why," Ward said. "But we ask if they have questions, because we want them to have facts instead of hearsay, and we encourage them to talk about it, even to write about it, to write a letter saying goodbye, because they didn't have a chance to do that.

"We try to walk them through it . . . we talk to them about going to the funeral home, and what they might say to the family.

"And we talk about how anger is a part of grief. When someone has left us, we can't get angry at them, so we take it out on other people --- and we tell them that drinking and taking drugs and driving fast is not the way to cope with that anger."

Getting them talking

Adele Steele, the part-time counselor at Brookwood, is the homeroom teacher for some of Ryan's classmates.

"I met them as they came off the bus," she said Monday morning. "They'd had a chance to cry their tears and talk about him, and they were just sad --- I touched base with each one individually and made sure they were OK.

"The main thing is to get them to talk about how they feel, because if they put all that inside, it stays there; it doesn't go away."

Exactly, says Wayne Brantley.

"It's not enough to say it's sad, but these things happen and life goes on," said Brantley, a counselor at Maxwell High School of Technology, where Ryan attended morning classes. "That is not enough --- they need to express what they're feeling, no matter what stage of grief they're in."

At such times, school counselors reach and comfort students in ways that others --- parents, teachers, police officers and ministers --- often cannot.

"It's not if it's going to happen, it's when," Brantley said. "And you're never prepared, no matter what --- but it's so important to support the students, and let them support each other."

"It's draining," said Ward. "You're exhausted at the end of the day . . . we try to be so careful with what we say, but mainly we want to show the students that we care, that we're a family."

More than 235 counselors work in Gwinnett schools, about 70 of them in high schools.

There is one part of their job they wish they never had to do, but sometimes must, for only they can do it.

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