After Shootings, Calls for Help Flood Region

Like many mental health providers around the country, counselors here feared that in the wake of the Columbine High School shootings, those needing help would either be too traumatized or too stigmatized to ask for it. As exhausted counselors in the region can attest, nothing could be further from the truth.

In numbers few predicted, teenagers, parents, teachers, SWAT team members, paramedics and clergymen have sought help to deal with the anxiety and grief brought on by one of the bloodiest school shootings in U.S. history.

Even therapists--working as many as 60 hours a week--have been seeking additional professional help.

After three weeks the demand for care has not abated. One mental health care provider in Littleton, Colo., site of the high school shooting rampage, said crisis calls have quadrupled and requests for ongoing services have gone up 50%. In the metro Denver area, managed care providers are reporting a 40% to 100% increase in requests for mental health services.

Most troubling to physicians is the scarcity of psychiatric beds--filled, officials say, mostly with troubled teenagers whose fragile psyches shattered after the Columbine shootings.

“Bed space is very, very tight,” said Jennifer Hagman, director of inpatient psychiatry at Children’s Hospital here. “The volume is way up.”

She said in the aftermath of the Columbine shootings, officials are treating kids “who are prone to being overwhelmed by events, kids who were already depressed, teenagers who--because of what they’ve been reading and watching on television--are now suicidal.”

Hagman said the ripple effect is to be expected, and youths under psychiatric care are being closely monitored. Traumatic events such as the shootings often act as trigger points to disturbed teens and adults, she said.

In Littleton itself, the calls for help have nearly overwhelmed the ability of Jefferson County to handle them.

“The good news is that people are asking for help, that’s a healthy response,” said Jo Anne Doherty, a counselor at the Jefferson Center for Mental Health, the agency most responsible for counseling rattled students, parents and teachers in the area.

“The first few days, for the majority of kids, there was the excitement of getting back into school,” she said. But to some, even the normalcy of school was unsettling. “As time goes on, we will see a variety of emotions. One child I talked with felt he was in a different space than his classmates. He was close to someone who died. He said, ‘Everyone around me looks happy. I’m not happy.’ When you’re an adolescent, this kind of thing can really shake your ground.”

Mental health experts here understand that theirs is a long-term task. School district officials were eager to reunite the Columbine students, teachers and staff, hoping that the school family would embrace the children and help with healing. That has begun to take place, they report. However, the process will be abbreviated. Friday is the last day of school for seniors; the rest of the students will be through by the end of the month.

According to Jeanne Mueller-Rohner, executive director of the Mental Health Assn. of Colorado, once the teenagers leave the cocoon of school, real emotional problems could begin.

“We’re all very concerned that it will be a vulnerable time,” she said. “This is going to be a long-term effort to make these kids healthy again. They have seen things kids should not have to see.”

The Jefferson Center for Mental Health is helping by coordinating a summer program based at a local theater. The space will be leased for teenagers to use for music, theater and art projects. Rooms will be set aside for parents needing counseling and a teen drop-in center will be created elsewhere in a shopping mall.

“When the kids get out of school, they could isolate,” said Donald Rohner, vice president for managed care for the Jefferson Center. “We are concerned about kids already using alcohol and drugs. They could self-medicate with substances and withdraw. Kids need to be together. It takes more work to associate after school is out.”