COLUMBUS, Ohio — Mental health experts are increasing counseling for students with a new partnership between OhioHealth and dozens of schools in central Ohio.
Counselor Brianna Abbott, who has served as a counselor kids at Worthington Kilbourne High School, said the partnership helps provide the counseling team the resources they need to provide students with grief and trauma tools.
“Grief is one of those areas that transcends all,” Abbott said. “It impacts all aspects of your life, your ability to think clearly, and focus. It can be negatively impacted when you're grieving because you're life has changed, and that's hard for students.”
She said grief can come in a variety of forms and OhioHealth uses interactive ways to support kids of all ages.
Lauri Yersavich, from OhioHealth, said it’s not about getting over it. It’s about processing through grief and honoring those lost.
“We have conversations. We might play Jenga, that gives us some questions about our person, about our grief and our memories. We talk through some of those physical reactions. We make stress balls, we make memory bracelets and memory keychains,” Yersavich said.
She said signs of grief can go beyond mental and emotional, and can affect students physically.
"Especially when a young person is dealing with grief and maybe traumatic grief, if it has been a death due to violence of any kind, that grief can hit really intensely, or it could be put off for a while. It could be seen as numbness or shock or I don't care,” Yersavich said.