Helen Derwood

Helen Derwood is both a kindergarten parent and a counselor specializing in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). After a shocking incident at Audrey Griffin and Warren Griffin’s home leaves her responsible for thirty young children, she turns professional knowledge into immediate, physical care. Her letter to the school community records not only how she got the children out, but how she understood and comforted them afterward.

Background and Professional Experience

Helen identifies herself as a counselor at Swedish Medical Center and says she specializes in PTSD. Her work has taken her to New Orleans after Katrina, and she continues to make frequent trips to Haiti. At the Griffin-house brunch, she is the only kindergarten parent in attendance; with permission from Head of School Gwen Goodyear, she writes to the parents both as a fellow parent and as a trauma counselor.

That double position shapes her account. She first presents herself as someone who was there, then offers parents a framework for understanding what their children may have experienced. Rather than treating professional expertise and parental concern as separate roles, she uses each to support the other.

Response to the Brunch Emergency

After Audrey runs away from the house, Helen is left with thirty kindergartners. The children are in socks, some barefoot, and broken glass is scattered around them. Her first instruction—to find their boots and raincoats—proves impractical: the children cannot safely retrieve their belongings. She changes course, gathers cushions, and lays them from the front door to the sidewalk as a path across the hazardous ground.

Helen has the children line up along the hedge, then carries them one by one down the street to the bus and drives them back to Bee’s Galer Street School. The children arrive shoeless, without jackets, muddy, and with vivid stories of what happened. Helen’s report makes the cost of their safe return concrete: the belongings are lost or left behind, but the children themselves are brought out of danger.

Care and Trauma Guidance

Helen presents the journey to the bus as more than evacuation. Carrying each child gives her a chance for physical contact, which she says research has shown can be healing immediately after trauma, especially for children. As they walk, she listens, shows curiosity, and stays with each child; this also lets her watch for early signs of PTSD.

She explains trauma as an event a person experiences as a threat to life, noting that the perception can form in as little as one-eighteenth of a second. In the immediate aftermath, children may be frightened or confused. Her assessment is reassuring but specific: the children appear to be coping well, and their main worries are whether they will get their rain gear back and how it will be cleaned. She answers honestly that the school will try to recover the gear and that it will probably be dirty.

Narrative Role

Helen’s letter turns a chaotic episode into a record that can be shared with the wider school community. Its practical details—the failed attempt to send children back for their belongings, the improvised cushion path, and the one-by-one walk to the bus—give weight to her professional explanation of trauma. She does not present the children as untouched by the event; instead, she observes their immediate fears and takes their questions seriously while reporting that they seem to be managing well.