Rep. David Hogue got an early Christmas present this week: a doll with unruly hair and a five-page mental health history.
The doll is one of about 40 to be delivered by adoptive parents who want legislators like Hogue to understand the stories behind the issue of adoption subsidies. "This is a group of real children with real needs that are going to affect society," said parent Jacquie Chappell, handing over a doll to Hogue, R-Riverton.
Chappell is a member of SAFFCare (Safe Adoptive Families for Children at Risk Emotionally). The group is made up of parents of children adopted from the state; children who arrive, often, with a history of abuse and neglect. The neediest of these children require years of therapy, says Chappell, but current state policies and funding are not sufficient.
Money for therapy actually ran out last summer. Gov. Mike Leavitt reinstated the funding, with the understanding that the 2001 Legislature would revisit the issue. So SAFFCare is handing out dolls and stories to key legislators, such as Hogue, who sit on committees like Health and Human Services appropriations.
As Hogue, R-Riverton, sat at his desk and cradled the doll earlier this week, Chappell explained that it represents her 16-year-old daughter Destiny, who came to live with the Chappells seven years ago. A letter that begins "my name is Destiny" accompanied the doll.
"Sometimes when my (birth) parents were sleeping," the letter said, "I'd sneak out of the house and go dig through garbage cans to find things for (me and my brother and sister) to eat. But if my dad woke up before I would get back, I'd get beat with a belt or worse."
Destiny has had several years of therapy, said Chappell, but some of it — the kind provided by government-funded Valley Mental Health — was ineffective. "Talk and play therapy doesn't cut it for these kids," she explained to Hogue. "A lot of these kids are master manipulators," who can fool therapists. "They've had to (lie) to survive."
It was only when Destiny got into more cutting edge therapy — neurofeedback and "cuddling therapy" — that she began to respond, Chappell said. But when Chappell's husband lost his job earlier this year, the family no longer had its own insurance.
"Our family right now is in crisis, and we have no therapy."
So this is what SAFFCare parents would like from the Legislature: not only continued funding but new policies that would allow parents to choose any therapy paid for by Medicaid.
Current therapy provided by the state "is inadequate for between 20 percent and 30 percent" of children adopted from the state, says SAFFCare president Charly Risenmay, who has eight adopted children, one guardianship child and two biological children. She is hoping to deliver a doll to the governor some time this week.
With Valley Mental Health, Risenmay said, there is a high turnover of psychiatrists, and there are scheduling problems requiring parents to sometimes wait months to get an appointment. "When your family is in crisis, you can't wait three or four months."
SAFFCare would also like ongoing training for adoptive parents, as well as an independent panel to make decisions regarding "what is and isn't appropriate care for each family."
According to Chappell, parents who adopt children from the state go into it with "eyes wide open," aware that "there will be heavy-duty issues." But they also were told, she said, that the state would provide necessary medical help for each child.
Risenmay, Chappell and other adoptive parents plan to provide legislators with weekly updates about their children, so lawmakers can understand, on a day-to-day basis, how difficult life is for the children and their families. In early January they'll retrieve the dolls, said Risenmay, "and deliver a plea for help."
E-MAIL: jarvik@desnews.com