Darrel Greer
Northern News Services

ARVIAT (Nov 03/99) - Staff at Arviat's Qitiqliq high school played a major role in helping emotional students deal with the sudden death of one of their peers earlier this month.

Principal Rod Forsey says there was a huge outpouring of emotion following the teenager's death.

"When something like this happens, it can tend to bring emotions to the threshold within other kids who are dealing with their own issues," says Forsey.

"We held assemblies to remember her, where students talked about their feelings.

"A favourite song of hers was played which brought out more feelings and enabled us to quickly identify who was very emotional and still struck by the grief."

Qitiqliq high went to great lengths to make it clear to students there was support available to them.

Eight counsellors were ready to help students deal with their grief shortly after the sudden death, including people from social services, local churches and the school's two counsellors.

This past week, the school brought in two counsellors who work with Dr. Keith Hildohl in Winnipeg.

"They were excellent, plus we had the area supervisor for social services come in, Dean Harvey," says Forsey.

"They were all excellent people, very supportive, who pulled together to come in and help us support the kids."

Forsey says he takes some solace in knowing the school was relatively proactive in trying to deal with the situation.

"The people from Winnipeg said we did as good a job as any place down south and probably better than in some places.

"We felt good about that. We were worried about the copy cat effect which is always a real possibility.

"We got people together quickly, got a plan together and it unfolded through the week."

Forsey says many students embraced the counselling, adding the school's own counsellors, Billy Okotak and Crystal Tracy, were instrumental in implementing the school's plan.

"This student was well-known in the community and had lots of friends.

"This is never an easy situation to deal with. You have to be sensitive to the kids and extra careful as you check out how they're feeling and what they're doing.

"All you can do is be there for them. We're fortunate in that we have a very caring staff here and it comes through in the crunch time.

"We received a tremendous amount of support from the community, which always helps us do our job more effectively and is especially important in a time like this."