Teams of counsellors help La Loche community with trauma

The difficult task of healing has begun in La Loche, Sask.,and teams of health care professionals are in the community to help deal with trauma and stress.

It was a week ago today that a gunman shot and killed four people and wounded seven others.

Duane Bowers is a licensed professional counsellor from Washington, D.C. He had previously been scheduled to conduct training sessions on trauma response elsewhere in the province, but instead was redirected by the provincial government to the northern Saskatchewan community.

"This is a community event, a community trauma, and that is really how it really needs to be approached," Bowers said.

"Certainly the event happened in the school but the ripple effects affect the whole town and it needs to be approached that way."

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Bowers said a traumatic response is not just emotional; there are also very physiological responses which causea multitude of symptoms.

"They include things like inability to sleep, quick to anger, inability to learn, inability to concentrate, things that include an overall effect of fear, of being afraid, of not feeling in control of your environment," he said, adding they can also be symptoms of stress. "But if you have four or five of these, and they are pretty intense, that's a good indicator that there is something more going on."

Bowers said post-traumatic stress disorder will not be diagnosed unless symptoms persist after 30 days. He pointed to statistics which show one-third of the people involved in a traumatic experience are at a high risk for a PTSD diagnosis. In a case where the community has experienced many traumas over the years, like higher suicide rates, that number may be even higher.

"There are many people who will have a delayed response. There are a lot of people who work really well right when an event happens, they are able to mobilize themselves, mobilize their families and do what they need to do," Bowers said.

"Then as time passes and there's perhaps less activity, then they find the symptoms start to show up."

Bower said they are in the initial crisis response mode but there will be need for long term mental health support in the community. Right now, he said the community needs to redevelop a sense of safety and of being in control.

He added that rituals like funerals and memorials will also be essential in healing.

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