It was around Christmas in 2006 when Leslie Evans reached her
breaking point. That day, she said, her drinking, abusive husband
attempted to choke her. She was pregnant with their fourth child.
Today, Evans seems at peace with what happened to her and her
children. But for years during her marriage, psychological and physical
abuse was the norm. She recounts how her former husband put guns to her
head, locked their children in their rooms for hours while she was at
work, and rammed her head into doors.
When she heard her oldest daughter giving a report to the Tucson
Police Department about the choking incident, she finally knew she had
to leave the situation.
“I had already kind of blocked what had happened, and she said, ‘My
daddy was choking my mommy,'” Evans said. “I was still thinking they
weren’t really hearing what was going on (and) they didn’t really feel
what was going on, but this was totally affecting them. A 5-year-old
shouldn’t have to be making reports like that.”
Evans and her four children—Cicely, 7, Epiphany, 6, Robbie, 4,
and Amir, 1—are now putting their lives back together. They have
received support from a number of organizations in Tucson who have
given them shelter, legal help and therapy.
However, the current budget crisis in Arizona has cut off one of
their lifelines: Healthy Families, a state program funded through the
Arizona Department of Economic Security (DES) that works with new
families to develop parenting skills and create strong families in
order to prevent child abuse and neglect.
Since 1991, Healthy Families has provided in-home services for
children from birth to age 5. Staffers visit every hospital in Arizona
and screen roughly half of all new mothers for risk factors for child
abuse or neglect. They’re looking for substance abuse, troubled
finances, a history of past abuse or other potential problem signs.
“The goal is to touch as many of those new parents as possible,”
said Eric Schindler, president and CEO of Child and Family Resources,
which employs a majority of Healthy Families workers in Southern
Arizona.
Families offered a spot in the program can meet with a case worker
to work on goals they have for their new family, said Penelope Jacks,
Southern Arizona director for the Children’s Action Alliance, an
organization that lobbies on behalf of children.
“What they do, basically, is child-abuse prevention before there is
even a whisper of a problem,” Jacks said. “These young mothers,
primarily … become tremendously bonded with their Healthy Families
support staff workers who at the beginning may be coming every
day.”
But on Friday, Feb. 13, a day Schindler refers to as “black Friday,”
Healthy Families received a $10,750,000 cut to its budget for the
fiscal year 2009, which ends on June 30. That is about 75 percent of
the Healthy Families funding for fiscal year 2009.
As a result, approximately 50 to 60 Healthy Families workers were
laid off, and approximately 3,500 families, including Evans and her
children, are losing their services.
Evans got involved with Healthy Families when she was in the
hospital after the birth of Amir. Her public-health nurse recommended
the program because of the number of times she was in the hospital
during her pregnancy due to the physical abuse, and the number of times
her husband had to be escorted away from the hospital.
She met with her case worker, Emily Clifford, who helped her set
goals following the birth of Amir.
“At that time, I still wanted to put back my relationship with my
husband, and probably just learn more about my baby,” Evans said. “Even
though I had three other children, I really missed out on their younger
years due to the abuse.”
Clifford came to Evans’ home initially about once a week and
involved her daughters and her new son in games, activities and crafts
that taught the family about healthy development and communication.
Clifford also suggested that Evans and her daughters would benefit from
therapy.
Therapist Jessica Jordan—who specializes in domestic-violence
cases—worked with both Evans and her children. Evans had Jordan
on speed dial; she met with Evans twice a week and over the course of a
year helped Evans gain the strength to leave the relationship and file
for divorce.
“On Feb. 5, I presented to the court a decree that he had signed,
and our divorce became final at 9:22 a.m.,” Evans said with a smile on
her face. “I was in tears and complete shock.”
Just after her divorce was finalized, she found out that Jordan was
being laid off, and her visits would soon stop.
“It was a big, huge thing in my life—that I was ending (my
relationship) with my husband—that we had been working on, and it
was the part where now, we were going to work on me,” Evans said.
“Losing Jessica (was) a very hard part for me. Jessica was such an
important person in my life this whole last year.”
In addition to Jordan getting laid off in February, Clifford left
her position—which was being cut—to go back to school.
Evans and her children had their final Healthy Families visit in
March.
Healthy Families is just one DES program whose budget is being cut
to make up for shortfalls.
The state budget for the current fiscal year was revised in January
to make up for a $1.6 billion shortfall in revenue. As a result, the
DES had its budget reduced by nearly $103 million—a figured
compounded by the fact that the agency was already wrestling with a $50
million dollar gap due to a growing demand for services. This $153
million shortfall has to be addressed by the end of the fiscal
year.
The numerous other services that have been reduced include programs
for children, aging adults, foster-care families, domestic-violence
survivors and the homeless.
Some of the programs that were slashed are preventative services.
Schindler argues that it doesn’t make financial sense to cut these
programs in the long term—leaving aside the emotional damage that
may result if these children fall through the cracks.
“Are there going to be some reductions in services in this type of
an economy? Yes,” Schindler said. “But when you take a
family-preservation program that costs roughly $300 a month, and then
you increase the number of kids that are going to be in foster care at
$3,000 a month, I don’t even know that it makes economic sense.”
Jacks agreed that cutting preventative services may result in more
costly services being needed later in life.
“These are kids where if you give them services when they are small,
you can generally keep them out of special ed; you can keep them out of
all kinds of trouble,” Jacks said. “There’s nothing mysterious about
this: If you help people early, things don’t get worse.”
While agencies are struggling to make the cuts needed this fiscal
year, they are looking at the possibility of even deeper cuts in the
fiscal year 2010. The Arizona DES was asked by the Governor’s Office of
Strategic Planning and Budgeting to prepare a draft budget that would
factor in cuts of 5, 10, 15 and 20 percent.
The prospects are bleak.
“In the current climate, basically everything we’ve managed to do
over 18 years is about to be rolled back in the space of about 4
months,” Jacks said. “Honestly, there really has been progress for
children, and honestly, it will go back to probably worse than it was
18 years ago.”
Though she lost the help of Jordan and Clifford, Evans is happy that
she was able to finalize her divorce and reach a place of strength
before losing them. She worries about other women who may not have
reached that point yet, and who may return to unhealthy
relationships.
“Six months ago, I would’ve gone back (to my husband),” Evans said.
“(For) the other women or other people … when that (support) is
ripped away from you, you’re going to go back to what you know, what
you’re comfortable with, and unfortunately, sometimes you’re
comfortable with abuse.”
Evans is now most concerned about making sure the cycle of abuse
will stop with her children. Her oldest two daughters, Cicely and
Epiphany, were most affected by the violence. Cicely reminds Evans of
herself, she said: Cicely always takes the blame for things and seeks
to please everybody. Meanwhile, Epiphany is aggressive. They still need
therapy to learn self-esteem and healthy communication, Evans said.
Amir, Evans is proud to say, is approaching his second birthday
without violence in his life.
Evans has been working with Emerge!, a domestic-violence center in
Tucson, to replace the therapy that she was getting through Healthy
Families, but she still does not have a therapist.
“I don’t even know what to do or where to go, because I know so many
services are being cut,” Evans said. “I hope to find a really good
therapist for them to work on their self-esteem and help them make
healthy choices.”
This article appears in Apr 30 – May 6, 2009.