Grieving families of murder victims are questioning Alberta Health Services’s decision to scale back a unique homicide bereavement counselling group.
For the last four years, mothers, fathers and other relatives have come together to share their harrowing loss of loved ones to shootings, stabbings and strangulation.
But what began as a six-week group therapy session morphed into monthly two-hour meetings, with some members in the core group drifting away from AHS’s mandate and instead focusing their hearts and minds on changing the justice system.
AHS officials say it can no longer support the monthly meetings.
Despite the changes, the group vows to remain.
"We’re going to do it come hell or high water, this group is not abandoning each other," said Gordon Rae, who joined the group after his 24-year-old daughter Sarah was stabbed to death in August 2008.
"We needed a roomful of people who understood what we are going through. We needed to understand that we weren’t going crazy. You think you’ll never come out of this," said Rae, adding the stress of publicity and high-profile murder trials are unique to survivors of homicide. "There’s a splinter group that really wants to advocate and write to politicians and there’s the whole group that was just the support of each other," said Rae.
In early May, the grief group was told the facilitator and monthly meeting space was being pulled. AHS officials said the grief program isn’t being cut, rather being restored to its original mandate of offering specialized, grief counselling support after a family member is murdered.
When the program was launched, it was designed to offer one-on-one counselling to victims, as well as a six-week group therapy program, said spokesman Don Stewart.
"The program continues, there is grief support offered," Stewart said, "but the scope of the group has broadened. Now, t h e needs and desires of some members have expanded beyond the original mandate — which was to provide immediate and direct grief support."
Stewart said AHS has offered to help the group with developing a community-based group.
Members of the group aren’t satisfied with that.
"It’s so frustrating that Alberta Health has pulled all support of this," said Rae. "We said we don’t want to change this format. We don’t want the facilitator to be involved in any advocacy we do. We want to continue on once a month for two hours and have a facilitator and a room."
Steffi Stehwein has watched newcomers join the group and recognized herself in their sorrow.
Her son, Aaron Shoulders, was stabbed to death after he was swarmed by a group outside a downtown bar. His killer has never been found. "It’s a lifeline for us, a safe haven to share, to talk, to vent, to cry together. We need each other.
"The public and the government needs to be educated on what life is like after murder. Nobody gets that unless you live there."
szickefoose@theherald. canwest.com
Comments