Elon: Where Students Have HEART
Did you go to the organization fair this year? You may have seen some new faces there behind the HEART table. Here at Elon, students have always had heart, but they haven’t had HEART until this semester. Thanks to Heather Broughton, Elon alumnus, HEART is finally a full-blown campus organization that is now busily reaching out to those who need it most.If you are going through a grief experience while still in college, you know how lonely it can be. However, it doesn’t have to be that way. It may seem as though you are alone, but between 35 and 48% of college students have lost a family member or close friend within the last 2 years. Heather is one of those students. In her words, “after my father died during the fall of my sophomore year at Elon, I had a lot of trouble relating to my peers because I kept feeling like no one really understood what I was going through." Now, HEART is here to help. It provides a community where both bereaved students and students who are inclined to reach out a helping hand can interact and benefit from one another.
HEART, Helping Elon Actively Remember Together, is a grief support and service outreach group for college students who are experiencing the terminal illness or death of a loved one. The organization is made up of three components: grief support, service, and the Angels program. The grief support aspect of the organization allows students to emote and commiserate freely with others who are going through similar experiences. Service is especially important to HEART because, as the campus group grows, attendees will have the opportunity to suggest and enact their own service projects. For example, a student whose loved one is struggling through an ordeal with breast cancer might want to organize a “race for the cure” or similar service event that would benefit organizations who endorse finding cures for breast cancer. Finally, the Angels program matches grieving students with Elon faculty volunteers so that students have a sympathetic adult who can provide one-on-one support. In addition to providing personal attention, faculty members who already know students’ situations can help them contact their professors in the event that they have to leave campus suddenly.
The organization currently meets biweekly, but also schedules frequent service opportunities. Meetings are divided into two halves, opening with service and closing with grief support. Attendees are free to come and go throughout the meeting; for example, if someone does not wish to stay for the grief support half of the meeting, he or she can leave easily without feeling uncomfortable.
How did HEART get started at Elon? I interviewed Heather Broughton to find out what had motivated her to make HEART a campus organization. She told me that "all too many times, the thoughts and emotions that come with losing a loved one get pent up inside and manifest themselves in negative coping mechanisms. The grief support network is meant to combat this by creating positive and constructive outlets for people to work through these issues." Heather was worried that grieving students didn't have an accessible and healthy way to address and deal with their feelings, so she took matters into her own hands and created HEART. One of the most unique and encouraging aspects of the group is that it welcomes "anyone who is impacted by death, even if it is a friend of a friend who lost a loved one, to come to the support group meetings and participate in open, constructive conversation about issues related to losing a loved one." You don't have to be bereaved to benefit from being involved in HEART.
Heather's vision for the future of HEART is open-minded and optimistic: “Years from now, I do not expect HEART to look like the organization I created. In fact, I hope it doesn't. I expect the leaders of HEART to be in tune to the needs of Elon's grieving students and to use HEART as a means of meeting those needs, even if it means altering my original framework for the group. In the future, I would like to see HEART become an integrated and natural part of Elon's community. I would like to see widespread awareness of the group, and I would like for every student to know where they can go if tragedy strikes. I would like for faculty and staff to be knowledgeable about the group and to feel comfortable referring students to HEART. I would like to see the same thing happen with the counseling center. Ultimately, my vision is for HEART to educate the entire Elon community about grief and to let people who are grieving know that they are not alone.”
For more information, please contact current HEART president Ellen Kaspik: ekaspik@elon.edu.
Michelle Eichel
November 2009
posted by BA|BS at
2:22 PM
7 Comments:
HEART sounds awesome. I think that there are people who truly could benefit from this organization's existence. I can see how it would be helpful with how many students at Elon I know personally are from Virginia and the reactions nation wide to the horror at Virginia Tech. This would be a vital resource to anyone who needs it but apart from this article I haven't heard of a single piece of information about this group. There has been no sort of active publicity about HEART and I think this resource could help a lot of people and would be a good tool for those who are suffering.
I had no idea that there was an organization group to help grieving students cope with their grief. I especially like that it is open to friends of someone who has lost someone, so they can learn how to best help their friend in need. Too many times people don't know how to "handle" their grieving friends, and either coddle or baby them too much or end up ignoring them just so they don't have to worry about saying the wrong thing. I would love to get involved with a group like this!
Wow this sounds like an incredible organization on campus! I'm so glad to know we have this at Elon.
Wow this sounds like an incredible organization on campus! I'm so glad to know we have this at Elon.
I think this is such a great organization to have on Elon's campus! Grief is something everyone experiences and to have a resource here at school that helps people go through the process is such a wonderful thing! I will definitely be telling friends of mine about this organization.
Heather you have done a great job with this group!
Two years ago, Heather contacted us, National Students of AMF, about starting up a chapter of Students of AMF at Elon. When she ran into some roadblocks, we discussed her going forward with the chapter with a different name. We at National Students of AMF are just concerned with helping college students grieving the illness or death of a loved one, no matter what the name of the group is.
But I did want to share with you all (especially if you are at another university) about the national organization that helps start chapters of Students of AMF (which HEART was molded after, but has developed with Heather's ideas) start up around the country. We currently have over 20 chapters on college campuses around the country.
The National Students of AMF (deceased or "Ailing, Mothers, Fathers" or loved ones) Support Network is dedicated to helping college students coping with the illness or death of a loved one, mainly by helping them start chapters of Students of AMF.
We accomplish our mission by helping students to start chapters of Students of AMF on college campuses nationwide (currently 26; Students of AMF chapters connect students to other peers who "understand" through a Peer-led Grief Support Group, provide opportunities for all students to fight back against terminal illness through the Service Group, and opportunities for faculty mentors to provide support to members of the Support Group as "Angels"), providing information and support through www.studentsofamf.org, raising awareness about the needs of grieving college students by annually hosting a National Conference on College Student Grief and National College Student Grief Awareness Week, and holding fundraising events, including the annual Boot Camp 2 Beat Cancer & Family Fun Walk and AMF Banquet. Each of our chapters have very close partnerships with student life offices, dean's offices, student health, university counseling centers, campus ministry and others.
Our website is http://www.studentsofamf.orgto learn more or you can check out a Today Show feature story about National Students of AMF at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxgnQUIyMow
Heather you have done a great job with this group!
Two years ago, Heather contacted us, National Students of AMF, about starting up a chapter of Students of AMF at Elon. When she ran into some roadblocks, we discussed her going forward with the chapter with a different name. We are just concerned with helping college students grieving the illness or death of a loved one, no matter what the name of the group is.
But I did want to share with you all (especially if you are at another university) about the national organization that helps start chapters of Students of AMF (which HEART was molded after, but has developed with Heather's ideas) start up around the country. We currently have over 20 chapters on college campuses around the country.
The National Students of AMF (deceased or "Ailing, Mothers, Fathers" or loved ones) Support Network is dedicated to helping college students coping with the illness or death of a loved one, mainly by helping them start chapters of Students of AMF.
We accomplish our mission by helping students to start chapters of Students of AMF on college campuses nationwide (currently 26; Students of AMF chapters connect students to other peers who "understand" through a Peer-led Grief Support Group, provide opportunities for all students to fight back against terminal illness through the Service Group, and opportunities for faculty mentors to provide support to members of the Support Group as "Angels"), providing information and support through www.studentsofamf.org, raising awareness about the needs of grieving college students by annually hosting a National Conference on College Student Grief and National College Student Grief Awareness Week, and holding fundraising events, including the annual Boot Camp 2 Beat Cancer & Family Fun Walk and AMF Banquet. Each of our chapters have very close partnerships with student life offices, dean's offices, student health, university counseling centers, campus ministry and others.
Our website is http://www.studentsofamf.orgto learn more or you can check out a Today Show feature story about National Students of AMF at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxgnQUIyMow
Post a Comment
<< Home