Study shows what helps, hinders grieving Sandy Hook families

NEWTOWN — The first study of its kind to convey the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting’s impact in the words of families whose loved ones were killed calls for better trauma education that recognizes the need to treat grief individually.

“Our daughter is not just our daughter now. She’s one of the children who was murdered at Sandy Hook. But that isn’t her freaking identity,” said one anonymous parent in the peer-reviewed study, “Primary Victims of the Sandy Hook Murders,” to be published in the journal, Children and Youth Services Review. “She is who she always was. And I want to remember her, and I want other people to remember her that way.”

Grouping together the 26 families who lost a loved one in the 2012 shooting as though all their grief is the same is among the ways communitywide efforts to help have retraumatized families of loss, the study’s author said.

“What was helpful for some (families) may not have been helpful for all,” wrote Joanne Cacciatore, an associate professor at Arizona State University’s School of Social Work. “One of the most important findings in these data was the need for individualized, sensitive care that promoted a sense of emotional and physical safety.”

The study, based on 15 interviews conducted in 2017, was commissioned by the Charlotte Helen Bacon Foundation to “have our voices heard unedited and undiluted,” and to “help victim families of mass shootings in the future,” according to a foundation release.

Charlotte Bacon was among the 20 first-graders and six educators slain when a lone gunman shot his way into a locked Sandy Hook Elementary School nearly eight years ago.

The study found the intensity of grief remained high among families of loss, battling everything from anger, guilt and loneliness to confusion, fear and pining for the deceased.

“(A)nger was a lot of it, early on. But you know, that has subsided to some degree,” said a participant in the study. “And then you are left with your yearning and sadness which will never go away.”

On Monday, the study’s author said families were retraumatized when some people who were trying to help didn’t understand trauma.

“We don’t do a great service to anyone in our society because we don’t do grief education,” said Cacciatore, adding she was careful in her interviews to allow the families to lead. “I let them go where they needed to go, because that’s the whole idea.”

The study, featured in the upcoming September issue, follows the 2019 publication of a book by a psychotherapist who ran the federally funded Newtown Recovery and Resiliency Team for 21 months in the early seasons of grief. That book by Melissa Glaser, written for clinicians, noted complications to communitywide recovery caused by media scrutiny, the brutality of the crime, the polarity of the political debate about guns, and conspiracy extremists.

Newtown’s top elected leader said the Bacon Foundation’s study was an important resource not only for the coming months as Newtown nears the construction phase of its Sandy Hook memorial, but for other communities that suffer mass shootings.

“This study afforded the people who suffered the most the anonymity they deserve and the ability to share their experience from the moment of the tragedy to the moment they sat down for the interview,” First Selectman Dan Rosenthal said. “It’s a heartbreaking read, but it’s important for the community to read it, because there is a lot of constructive feedback that we can all reflect on.”

Among the study’s recommendations for better trauma education and more research are suggestions for more oversight on the management of charity funds, and media coverage reform.

The study also finds taking action has helped some families “endure the unendurable.” But not all families saw political or social action as a path through the pain.

“When we would get together, people would say, ‘What about gun control, what about school safety?’ ” said one participant in the study. “(A)nd I remember I raised my hand, ‘I just want to know how I am going to survive tomorrow.’”