CENTER HELPS TEENS LEARN TO LIVE WITH GRIEF

If someone close to you died, you probably would not know how to deal with the resulting emotions. You might not know where to turn for comfort and support.

Nearly 14,000 kids have found help with their grief at the Dougy Center in Portland, Ore. The center helps young people find a way to deal with the deaths of family members and friends.

"We exist so that they won't have to feel isolated and alone and different, and so that they can know that their reactions to a death are normal and OK," said Donna Schuurman, executive director of the center.

Y-Press recently interviewed Schuurman and two teens, Carlie Cottle, 17, and Molly McCormick, 16, who worked through their grief at the center.

The inspiration for the facility was a boy named Dougy, who was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. Dougy would walk around the hospital and talk to other kids about death.

Beverly Chappell, a nurse at the hospital, observed how the kids would open up to Dougy in ways they never would to adults. She decided to start a center where kids could learn to manage their grief with other kids who were also experiencing personal tragedies.

Chappell and her husband, Alan, started the center in 1982 in their living room. Its mission was "to provide to families in Portland and the surrounding region loving support in a safe place where children, teens and their families grieving a death can share their experiences as they move through their healing process."

The center now has its own building and is also an international resource and training center for programs designed to help grieving children and families.

Carlie turned to the center after she lost her father four years ago. She describes the center as "a bunch of friends who you could hang out with and just talk. And even if you weren't talking about the death, it still helps."

Molly started going to the center a year ago after her older sister, Meagan, died unexpectedly of a rare virus that attacked her heart.

"I really felt comfortable there and comfortable with the people there," she said.

Both girls called the center a refuge from school, where many of their peers did not understand what they were going through.

"There were a few people who didn't talk to me for a little while, but I think it's 'cause they didn't know what to say. But everybody else tried to just go on as if nothing happened," said Molly.

When Carlie's dad died of heart failure, she was unable to talk to her family.

"My sister -- we're not very close, she's three years younger than me, so we never really talked about it. She started hanging out with her friends a lot more, and my mom started hanging out with her friends a lot more, and we just kind of didn't talk to each other," she said.

The Dougy Center became the only place where Carlie could share her feelings.

"People didn't even try to get to know me after that because I was just too different, I guess. They treated me like suddenly I was defective because I didn't have a father."

Because of the wide range of experiences, youth who come to the center are divided into support groups by age, relationship to the person who died and cause of death. In these smaller groups, they have the opportunity to release their feelings in a variety of ways, such as talking with other young people and creating artwork.

Carlie started going to the center when she was 13 and continued for three years. "You become closer, I think, to yourself and to your grief by talking with people who understand what you're going through," she said.

Molly, who continues to attend sessions at the center, called it "somewhere I can go for comfort or whatever I need."

Schuurman believes group therapy can be more beneficial than one-on-one counseling, especially with teens.

"One of the things the kids tell us is, they feel like they're the only person this has ever happened to and they feel really alone. So they aren't going to necessarily feel less alone if it's just them and a counselor. It's when they have the opportunity to be with other kids their age that they really feel that they're not alone," she said.

"It's all people around your age who understand what you're going through in school right now and at home and with the death," said Molly.

Grief and the grieving process may be uncomfortable to some, but not at the Dougy Center.

"Grief is not a mental illness. Grief is not a disorder; it's a normal response to losing someone you loved, or losing someone you hated. Either way, it still impacts you," said Schuurman.

"I think everyone has a different grieving process, and we don't all grieve the same way," added Molly. "To help myself grieve, I have made a few movies about my sister, and I enjoy looking at pictures and listening to music that she liked, and I like sharing funny stories about her that makes everybody laugh."

The Dougy Center's pioneering model for assisting youth and their families has received international acclaim and publicity.

"A lot of the kids tell us later that they find that they're able to be helpful to other kids in their lives because they've had the experience of being able to talk about it and share in whatever ways -- through art, through physical activity -- not just through sitting and talking," Schuurman said. "I never have to question whether what we do here matters."

Without the center, "I think I would be more depressed now. . . . I think I would've kept all my thoughts and feelings inside and just I wouldn't have been able to get them out," said Molly.

"I don't think I would've done as well in school, and I don't think that I would be making good choices because I wouldn't be able to deal with my grief the way that the Dougy Center showed me how to," Carlie added.

"It provides something that regular, traditional counseling doesn't provide. It's not one-on-one with a counselor situation; it's kids talking to kids, which makes all the difference in the world."

ASSISTANT EDITOR: Carly Decker, 17.

REPORTERS: Allison Gardner, 13; Meera Patel, 11.