By EMMA DELK

Staff Writer

WHEELING — Local mental health professionals are lending their time to help flood victims recover mentally, while they still work to recover what was physically lost over the weekend in Ohio County.

Crisis and grief counseling sessions with licensed therapists at Bridge Street Middle School are available to assist anyone in the public affected by the tragedy, including first responders.

No appointment is needed, and counseling is available to children, adults and families at the following times:

– June 20: 1-4 p.m.

– June 23: 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.

– June 24: 9 a.m. to noon

Ohio County Schools Behavior Specialist Dr. Nicole Shepherd, one of the counseling organizers, said the counseling was created through the collaboration of local counselors, therapists, Communities in Schools social workers and mental health counselors employed by OCS.

“I think it is really important for victims to have someone who listens and validates the emotions that are occurring,” Shepherd said. “We hope to provide people with skills that will help them deal with the current situation, but even more important than that is someone to just listen first.”

OCS is also offering facilitated support groups for first responders in addition to individual crisis and grief counseling.

“We plan to talk to first responders and families who have witnessed very horrific events in the flooding,” Shepherd said. “We’ve already talked with teachers who have lost former students and families who have lost housing and other material things. All those people are appropriate to talk to us because they each require different tools to process what they’ve gone through and a different level of care.”

Achieve Behavioral Health Counselor Jason Frohnapfel along with three counselors from his agency – Leslie Bolock, Jakki Pickett and Breea Burke – will lend their time for the counseling. Mental wellness coaches Tyler Kilbane from Known by Name Counseling Services and Joelle Moray will also assist.

OCS school counselors Kathie Seidler, Jill Maloney, Betsy Jones and Jen Mathieu will help. CIS site coordinators Abby Pownall, Heather Weekley, Marleah Donahie, Kristen Paynter, Brooke Barton and Jess Stradwick will also donate their time.

OCS Director of Communications Karin Butyn said anyone needing free mental health counseling can come to Bridge Street during the available counseling times. A CIS site coordinator will be at the school’s front desk to help the participants fill out paperwork and then connect them to a counselor for a session held at the school’s CIS office.

Shepherd said the emergency counseling would provide short-term assistance for flood victims and first responders to discuss what they’ve been facing. She added that counselors would also provide them with tools to process their experiences “in a safe and healthy way.”

“Even just a listening ear, taking a break, and a few tools can provide a sense of comfort to people who are really struggling,” Shepherd said. “It’s important for people to know they have resources available to them and can begin to work through what they have experienced. We want to provide them a place of comfort while connecting them to the resources available to them.”

Shepherd noted that even volunteers who have seen the disruption caused by the flooding may possibly benefit from counseling.

“The volunteers and first responders who are out working on recovery efforts have also been impacted,” Shepherd said. “We just want everyone to be able to drop in, and we can get an initial gauge and see how we can help them.”

Butyn noted that many flood victims are currently in the physical stage of flood recovery, but that the trauma from the event will also impact them. She said therapy sessions would be “as long as anyone needs” to help them work through that trauma, and there would be availability for others to schedule sessions beyond the Bridge Street hours.

“In a clinical setting, therapy is typically between 45 minutes to an hour, but if someone needs to talk, we are not going to turn them away,” Butyn said. “There may be a brief waiting period depending on how many therapists we have in-house at the time. People are in the physical stage of flood recovery right now, but that trauma will hit, and we need people to know we can help them get from point A to point B in whatever way they feel comfortable with.”

Shepherd acknowledged that it may be difficult for those in the middle of cleanup and recovery to stop their work for counseling. She encourages anyone hesitant to receive help to “come try it once.”

“Emergency counseling like this is meant to be short-term, so just a session or two could really help, and it isn’t a long-term commitment,” Shepherd said. “Then, if someone is interested in longer-term treatment, we can link them up with appropriate resources.”

Butyn hopes that anyone in need of counseling takes advantage of it. She said it was the “one tangible thing” that OCS could offer to help as residents begin to “rebuild and start to process what has happened here.”

“I think we associate the school system with children, as we should, but these are licensed, practicing counselors who have every capability of sitting down with anyone at any age to offer support, guidance and the next steps to protect that mental health component after the flooding,” Butyn said. “We had families whose homes literally washed away, and that doesn’t even take into account the catastrophe of our community losing seven people, some of whom had direct ties to our school system. If we can offer a space for people to process this, even if it’s just to give them an hour away from everything, we can help that healing begin.”

Butyn added that though it will take a long time to rebuild the “physical piece” lost from the flooding, it may take even longer to rebuild the “emotional piece.”

“We just want our community to know when they’re ready that we will be here, whether that’s today or weeks from now,” Butyn said. “We will set up that help for them and make it work.”