The Amelia Center
A project of Children’s Hospital of Alabama
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At The Amelia Center a compassionate and caring group of professional grief counselors and support staff provide counseling and support.
The Amelia Center is a comprehensive grief counseling center that provides individual and family counseling to children and teens who have experienced a death, or to adults who have experienced the death of a child. We also provide training and education to groups such as schools, churches and businesses, as well as Crisis Intervention Response to schools.
The Amelia Center is founded on the belief that every child, teenager and adult deserves the opportunity to grieve in a supportive and understanding environment. The mission of The Amelia Center is to provide individual counseling, group counseling, and education to children grieving the death of a family member, as well as parents and families grieving the death of a child; and to offer professional education and training in grief counseling models.
The Amelia Center's history began at 5:15 p.m. on Monday, June 26, 1995, on a lonely railroad track crossing near the YMCA's Camp Cosby in Alpine, Alabama. That's when a train ran headlong into the car carrying Amelia Elliott, Ginger Griffies, Robin Vance and Chris Terry... four Camp Cosby counselors on their way to see a movie in Hoover on their night off. All of them were killed instantly.
For Amelia's parents, George and Jerrie, June 26 started as a day of utter happiness. After six months of being overseas in school in Wales, Jerolyn, their middle daughter, was coming home, and George was headed to Atlanta to pick her up. Everyone was filled with the joy of Jerolyn's homecoming. But that joy wasn't to last. In early evening the Elliott family had a visitor at their door - a policeman who told them of Amelia's death...and their world fell apart.
In those days, no place like The Amelia Center existed, and, so, for the most part, the Elliotts were left to struggle through those early years of grief alone. But they and others were determined that, out of their tragedy, and the other parents' tragedies, good would prevail.
The Amelia Center opened its doors in July 1997. Since then its capable and compassionate staff have provided a place of hope for thousands of grieving individuals who have walked through its doors.
