The Wendt Center is a 24-year old program focused on helping people cope with serious illness, death, and grief. The RECOVER program began in 1998, when Wendt staff proposed it to Jonathon Arden, Chief Medical Examiner for D.C. The program’s funders include the Project On Death In America (PDIA). By November 1999, RECOVER had helped 1,024 families, assisting with the identification process, follow-up phone calls, and bereavement services.
"The medical examiner used to make referrals to the Wendt Center," explained Kevin O’Brien, who directs the RECOVER program. "We intervene to offer grief support and, in cases of violent death, to ask about children affected by the death. We want to break the cycle of violence."
O’Brien said that people who come to the Office of the Medical Examiner need a great deal of support. "It is painful how people are treated through the police department, through social services—we wanted to introduce compassion to the process," O’Brien said.
A licensed clinical social worker or counselor staffs the RECOVER program at the Medical Examiner’s Office seven days a week from 8:30 to 5:00. As soon as a family arrives at the OME, a RECOVER staff person meets them.
"When the family comes in, we meet them in the lobby and talk to them about whom they will be identifying, what the process is like, and how we can help them," O’Brien explained. "Some people have just been notified, some have come from the hospital and need to make a formal identification, some are coming for a missing person. All of the suicides, homicides and accidents in the city come to the ME." At this point, families may need immediate intervention, such as counseling, or help with issues such as personal safety.
RECOVER staff offer to make a follow-up call to the family and, when appropriate, suggest that family and loved ones participate in one of several support groups, including general bereavement, victims of homicide, infant death, and sudden death. RECOVER also offers two groups for children. Six therapists run the groups and offer individual counseling. The "homicide group" meets twice each month, and usually includes up to 15 people. According to Beverly Jones, L.C.S.W., L.I.C.S.W., who runs these groups, most participants are "mothers, sisters, brothers, and girlfriends."
"People feel very isolated, and this group is a way to find out that what they are feeling is okay, it’s legitimate," she said. "Most have not had assailants caught, and there is a lot of anger surrounding the death. There is the search for understanding that is common to all deaths."
Jody Telfair, L.C.C., Ph.D., noted, "What is important is that all of these people have had a traumatic loss and what matters most is how important the person was in the survivor’s life." Like Jones, Telfair said that people benefit from the common experience. "It helps to be with people who have similar experiences. You don’t have to pretend to be fine for people who might not understand why you are so devastated or why it’s taking you so long to ‘get over it.’"
In some cases, Jones and others make home visits, especially if survivors are elderly and are unable to leave the home. In some cases, therapists help families figure out how to afford a burial.
"There is a lot we can’t do," Telfair said. "We can’t take away the tremendous pain. But when people have unbearable pain, the way to bear it is to know we aren’t totally alone. These people need to tell their stories—and other people can’t stand it. It helps to have people who understand."
For more information, contact:
Kevin O’Brien
Director, RECOVER Program
730 11th St., NW, Third floor
Washington, DC 20001
202.624.0062
www.lossandhealing.org
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