The Barr-Harris Children's Grief Center staff is available to assist schools in the Chicago area with the following emergencies:
 

 1) The death of a teacher.

 2) The death of student by natural or unnatural means, such as suicide or murder.

 3) Any other school emergency involving loss of life.

 

Two vignettes describe the Barr-Harris staff's assistance to schools with loss.

 

Case 1. Five junior high school students were playing with a loaded gun a week before graduation. A girl was accidentally shot in the head and died immediately.
 

Barr-Harris was contacted and two therapists responded the next day. There were meetings with staff and then with the friends of the dead student. The next day Barr-Harris therapists met with staff once again and later that day met with the parents of the involved students. As a result, one of the surviving students was started in immediate individual therapy with Barr-Harris while another student had a psychiatric hospitalization at a local hospital a week after the incident.
 

Barr-Harris staff followed up with the school at the one year anniversary of the event.

 

Case 2: While skateboarding with friends, a junior high school student was run over by a car and died immediately.

Two Barr-Harris staff came to the school the next day and met with staff after which they held group discussions about the impact of loss with the student's friends. Two days later the Barr-Harris staff returned for further meetings with students, who were extremely disturbed by the incident since they witnessed it. One of the dead student's friends was referred for therapy to Barr-Harris.
 

In both incidents Barr-Harris staff responded immediately and were helpful to the schools in dealing with these traumatic losses.