MANSFIELD (1080 KRLD)- Mansfield ISD is offering counseling to help students, staff and parents "begin to process what has happened" at Timberview High School. Classes at Timberview were canceled Thursday.
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"It is so important that the Timberview High School community have time to heal," the district wrote in a statement.
Counseling is available at two locations:
Mansfield ISD Center for the Performing Arts
1110 W. Debbie Lane, Mansfield, TX 76063
Word of Truth Church
8201 Webb Ferrell Rd, Arlington, TX 76002
"The services that are being offered are there so whatever a person's emotional state is, whatever questions they may have, whatever anxieties or stresses come along with something like this, just bring it here," says Word of Truth Senior Pastor Eben Conner. "Allow someone to sit down with you. It's not okay, but the message is, 'It's going to be okay.'"
Conner says Word of Truth was offering space for the district to help students both emotionally and spiritually.
"We're just here to be that support system they need," Conner says. "We're three part beings: spirit, soul and body. A traumatic event like that affects every part of a person's being."
Conner says his youth pastor was at Timberview for a bible study. He had left an hour before the shooting. He says one of the councilors at Word of Truth Thursday morning was working at Timberview when the shooting occurred.
"I could hear it in her voice, it impacted her as well, so here it is: she's helping people, but she is going to need some help," he says. "An event like this affects everybody both directly and indirectly. Counseling and support are very, very important to families and victims and also people who are indirectly involved with it."
He says counselors will help people process their emotions in their own way. He says students will remember being at the school and experiencing the shooting first-hand while parents will focus on how they can help their kids deal with the emotions while still working through their own feelings of uncertainty.
"The answers are going to be different for so many different people," Conner says. "That's part of the challenge of counseling is to help people process what they went through, what they saw, what they felt and help people work through that, that they'll be able to process it and eventually talk it through."
Conner says Mansfield ISD will decide each day whether to continue counseling based on demand.
Details about counseling are available HERE. Mansfield ISD also has ongoing student support services. A list is available HERE.
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