I just learned that Jen, a social worker at the Winthrop House alternative school in Brookline, recently died after a struggle with cancer. The last time I interacted with her, in 2016, she had been diagnosed and was starting treatment. Although that is never good news, many of us thought she had a good chance to survive. I never followed up to find out what happened.

She was not a friend, and I don’t keep up with any of my sons’ or nephew’s former teachers or educational professionals. Yet hearing of Jen’s passing has affected me much more than I would have guessed. She was a person of warmth and caring whose depth is hard to overstate. She had such genuine love and such deep respect for the vulnerable teens she worked with that even the hardest cases responded to her. She was fiercely determined to save every one of them, and spared no effort toward that end.

For the most part, they were saved. The first priority of WH is to prevent suicide, and it had a perfect record on that during the time my family was involved. Most of the students, who were admitted because they were in danger of not graduating from high school, did so, and many were able to attend college.

Jen provided a refuge, her door always open for a student too stressed to stay in class, recovering from tough conditions at home, or working out confusing relationship dynamics. She also reached out to the adults, helping us help the kids, in part by teaching us the actual effects of things like anxiety attacks, things with which many of us had no experience. She was gentle yet firm, a good person for reconciliation, a persuader.

A very good person has left the world too soon, once again. Still makes me sad.

Perhaps in the years since I have been involved, WH has updated their methods to reflect changes in treatment, changes that I have only become aware of recently. Many WH students have diagnoses such as major depression or general anxiety disorder, and they are encouraged to focus on and embrace their mental health conditions, protected from even the most minor stress, fed copious amounts of sugar, and heavily medicated, all approaches that are contraindicated by current studies. I wish I had known about these new findings when my nephew was there. I did the best I could with the knowledge I had; Jen did the best anyone could have done with that knowledge.