[T]he day that a social worker was shot and killed in Barre, the Rev. Earl Kooperkamp was reminded of the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, when he led a congregation in Harlem in New York City.
“It has that same kind of shock value,” Kooperkamp, now of Barre’s Church of the Good Shepherd, told VTDigger on Friday. “The terrible violence of it ripping into a beautiful Friday afternoon.”
Kooperkamp is part of a group that is trying to help the community heal in the aftermath of the Aug. 7 shooting deaths of Lara Sobel, Regina Herring, Rhonda Herring and Julie Ann Falzarano.
Faith leaders, law enforcement, mental health specialists and other service providers are joining together to process the shootings and set community goals.
“Time begins to heal a little bit, but there also has to be something a little more active,” Kooperkamp said.
According to Christine Johnson, field services director with the Agency of Human Services in Barre, the first step is addressing trauma.
“There are so many people that have a desire to help and figure out what is the meaning of this tragedy,” Johnson said.
Johnson has taken the lead in organizing the group, which has met twice so far. With a third meeting planned for next week, the people involved are beginning to focus around a set of goals. Community safety, support for parents and families, and mental health and substance abuse treatment are all priorities.
“How do we wrap around this tragedy and how do we really come out on the other side of it,” Johnson said.
Mental health workers have been providing trauma counseling since the shootings occurred.
Jody Herring, 40, is charged with first degree murder in the death of Sobel, a social worker who was involved in the custody case of Herring’s young daughter. Herring was also charged with three counts of aggravated murder in the shooting deaths of three relatives. She has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges.
Within minutes of learning of the shooting, two emergency response specialists at Washington County Mental Health Services (WCMHS) went to downtown Barre to be available for people on the scene, Mary Moulton, the designated agency’s executive director, told VTDigger.
That was just the first step. The agency has since reached out to Barre and Berlin residents, as well as DCF employees and other outreach staff, to address the reactions that are “rippling in the community,” Moulton said. They do that by running debriefings, support groups, one-on-one counseling and other services.
In the small central Vermont community, many locals knew Sobel, the Herrings and Falzarano personally, Moulton said, but even those who didn’t could feel the impacts of vicarious trauma.
“We as a system had to step up. That’s what we did, we reached out,” Moulton said. “And people reached back, which was really incredibly touching.”
Now, Moulton, who was along the two-dozen people to join the first community meetings, says the focus should be on what individuals and the community as a whole can do, instead of on the sense of fear that reverberated from the shootings.
“I think what this horrific loss did was raise for us the need to do more to mend the cracks in the sidewalk,” Moulton said.
As the group approaches its third meeting next week, Claire Kendall, of the Family Center of Washington County and an organizer of the effort, said that one of the priorities is to elevate the level of respect for all the parties involved in the system.
“An element that we really want to be touching on is the respect of all parties involved whether you are a DCF social worker, or work at a family center, or are part of a family receiving services,” Kendall said.
As the effort moves forward, she said, they will be focusing on ensuring they have a broad array of people at the table, including citizens of Barre and Berlin as well as service providers and leaders.
“We don’t want to go on meeting and meeting for meeting’s sake but come up with some real concrete strategies,” Kendall said.
Barre Police Chief Tim Bombardier who represents law enforcement in the community group says police deal with the emergency at hand,
“but you have to step back and look at how they affect the individuals involved.”
Local law enforcement has worked with WCMHS in the past, particularly in the aftermaths of flooding in downtown Barre in the spring of 2011 and more recently in July of this year.
“We’re never going to make things exactly how they were before,” Bombardier said, but the community can “try to make things better.”
