Marsh Chapel and the Danielson Institute offer Boston University are now offering students an on-campus bereavement service for those who need counseling after losing loved ones.
Reverend Sakena Young-Scaggs, who came to BU in September, has spearheaded the center’s activities, which began this semester.
“Bereavement is different from depression or other counseling,” she said. “We’ve had quite a few losses in our community, from students to faculty to staff. Moving, the loss of a boyfriend or girlfriend and death [are all forms of bereavement].
“My experience as a pastor is pastoral counseling,” she continued. “We also have a clinical person present [at meetings so that we can] work as a team.”
Young-Scaggs said the Danielson Institute offers a pastoral approach to clinical services, and that bereavement brings all of these elements-pastoral counseling and clinical support – together in one group.
“We haven’t had a large attendance thus far,” she said. “We expect larger involvement across the campus in the fall. We’ll be more established then and people will identify us more as a service. We allow theology and faith to be present in the room because oftentimes theology and faith and spirituality often inform issues of loss.”
But although faith is allowed in the group, Young-Scaggs said they do not enforce a religious presence.
“We’re not praying with the student,” she said. “We’re here to offer bereavement in its best form, in an inclusive environment where students feel safe to talk about their faith or not. Every care is taken to make the students feel comfortable.”
Young-Scaggs hosted two workshops in conjunction with the Office of Residence Life at the beginning of the semester – one on bereavement and one on health, wellness and general wellbeing.
Social work therapist Rebecca Thompson, who is part of the one-year training and fellowship program at the Danielson Institute, said her training involves counseling, work with both individuals and groups and an outreach program in Dorchester.
Thompson began to work with Marsh Chapel on the bereavement group at the beginning of the spring semester.
“I would attend [bereavement meetings],” she said. “We would absolutely like to see more students [attend these meetings]. I think the biggest challenge in any college situation is to get students to attend such meetings. We’ve been talking of how to make the meetings more comfortable so that more students would be willing to attend.”
Thompson said the group meetings would end when final exams are over, but it is scheduled to begin again in the fall and continue indefinitely from there.
Thompson said she thinks it is appropriate for an on-campus group to approach bereavement through religion, but that it is not the only way to deal with it.
“I think that there needs to be a lot of different venues,” she said, “and I think that that was the goal of the collaboration between Marsh and the Danielson Institute.”