WATTS : Children of Cancer Victims Air Feelings

One by one, the children and teen-agers open up. Some offer only a few words; others can barely wait their turn. As each speaks, quiet descends over the group. The discussion is about families and cancer.

“It’s kind of hard getting used to her,” said Farrah Richardson, 15, whose mother has undergone surgery three times for brain tumors. “But I try to think what she’s going through. She tries to remember things, but it’s hard.”

Richardson was participating in a discussion at Kids Can Cope, a weekly counseling group at the Kaiser Permanente Watts Counseling and Learning Center. There, about a dozen children and teen-agers talk about the difficulties of living with parents or relatives who have cancer.

Counselors say the group, whose participants are 3 1/2 to 19, offers perhaps the only place for many to air their emotions.

“These are their peers in illness, if you will,” said counselor Marlene Beckles, who runs the group. “They come here and are given permission to share about their families. The children provide an example to one another, that it is OK to talk about it.”

The 13-year-old program is free. Members, mostly residents of Watts and South-Central, find out about it through hospital referrals, schools, social workers and word-of-mouth, Beckles said. It is not always easy getting the young people to talk. Beckles uses several techniques, including play therapy and art therapy, to focus on their home lives.

Some of the youths are unintentionally overlooked by their families, who are struggling to cope with the cancer victim, said Beckles. The center also helps arrange social services for sick parents and their families.

The weekly sessions during the past year have helped Toni Beard, 17, accept her father’s ongoing struggle with lung cancer. Talking about the illness also has helped her stay in the Maxine Waters Employment Preparation Center in South-Central.

“It’s a release,” Beard said. “I couldn’t concentrate in school wondering how my dad was doing. Now, if he’s doing well I say that. If he’s not doing good, I can say that too. It’s helped me to cope.”

The group is one of three sponsored by the Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program.

Beckles said she hopes the meetings will leave the participants with a positive outlook. “The message is, ‘Yes, there is someone very sick and possibly dying, but life does go on,’ ” Beckles said.