Four white doves and hundreds of balloons helped students and teachers at Lacombe’s Chahta-Ima Elementary School find a bit of closure in the recent deaths of four classmates.

Orlando Robinson Jr., 10, Makaria Perkins, 6, Makayla Perkins, 6, and Latasia Perkins, 8, were killed in a mobile home fire early on the morning of Jan. 17. The four were laid to rest a week later, and Tuesday’s ceremony was held to honor their memory.

“We are here to celebrate the lives of our four friends who are now in heaven,” said Chahta-Ima PTA President Karen McQuilkin. “We will treasure their precious memory.”

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Poems and prayers were offered by a number of students, and each of the four children’s teachers spoke briefly. Individual photos of each child, signed by all of their classmates, were presented to members of the Perkins family. Four white doves were then released, followed by hundreds of white balloons rising up into the air.

A similar event was held at Bayou Lacombe Middle School, where the children’s surviving sibling is a student.

The occasion served as the final note in a program of grief counseling that has been in place since immediately following the tragedy. A crisis team from the St. Tammany Parish School Board was dispatched, with two counselors stationed in each of the classes the four youngsters attended. In addition, the school’s mental health provider, Kathryn O’Neil, has been visiting with anyone with a need to sort out their feelings.

“They’re experiencing fear, sadness, anger, even revisited grief over a previous loss they may have had,” said O’Neil. “Some of them just can’t understand why it had to happen, and are asking a lot of questions about what happens when someone dies.”

The school board instituted its crisis team program about 10 years ago to respond to the needs of its students in the event of disaster or other tragic events.

Darryl Bruno, the school board’s coordinator of mental health services, put a crisis team together with a call from school board Superintendent Gayle Sloan.

Bruno contacts pupil appraisal staff members, school psychologists, social workers, education diagnostics and speech therapists to plan its response.

“We discuss who will be the most impacted,” said Sharon Hosch, supervisor of special education, which oversees the crisis team and mental health services. “Darryl then establishes the tools needed to respond most thoroughly to the situation.”

Hosch said those tools must be age-appropriate, and could be face-to-face counseling, or perhaps a game to help younger children deal with the issues at hand. Sometimes literature is distributed for the students to read on their own time.

The type of team and the number of people involved may change from case to case, depending on the impact of the crisis.

“We don’t want to send too many, but if the crisis has major impact we certainly want to have enough staff available, so that everyone can get the help they need,” said Hosch.

If something happens on a national level, such as the Columbine shootings in 1999, a team might be put together if it was felt the incident would have a local impact. After Hurricane Katrina, mental health providers and counselors were on standby for several months, as families reeled from the storm and its aftermath.

Each school in St. Tammany Parish employs a mental health provider, in addition to a school counselor. Students may meet with the mental health provider once without permission, but parental consent is required for continuing services.

Hosch said the school board’s number one goal is to foster a safe, productive learning environment for both faculty and students, and addressing emotional issues helps foster that atmosphere. It is equally important to make those services available to parents as well, in order to help them cope with the crisis at home.

Tuesday’s ceremony at Chahta-Ima was put together with input from members of the local community and its student body. While it brought tears to some and smiles to others, Hosch said the event would play a key role in the process of coping with grief.

“People don’t often realize how important it is to find closure,” she said. “These ceremonies help us to find that.”