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News from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences
"This Place Has Changed My Life,” Young Mother Tells
U.S. Sen. Hutchinson at UAMS
AUG.
23, 2002 | Kicking a drug habit and reentering “the world” is possible because
her children are at her side, a 21-year-old addict told U.S. Sen. Tim Hutchinson (R-AR)
this morning at UAMS.
Recovering from drug addiction isn’t easy, she said. “If you leave your kids,
your kids have no idea that you are changing. Here, they learn it with you. As you grow
and change, your kids change.”
The young woman is a client at Arkansas CARES,
a program of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) that Sen. Hutchinson
toured with mental health leaders at the university. Women and their children live
together at Arkansas CARES while the women get “clean” and many learn, for the
first time, how to be good mothers. The program is an innovative approach to breaking the
cycle of childhood abuse, mental illness, drug addiction, prostitution and crime, poor
parenting, and loss of parental rights that threatens an estimated one-third of mothers in
Arkansas, according to Executive Director Cynthia C. Crone, MNSc, APN.
Sen. Hutchinson told Crone; G. Richard Smith, M.D., chair of the UAMS Department of
Psychiatry; and others that comprehensive treatment appears to be cost-effective. ”If
we address this on the front end, we can save a lot on social services,” he said.
Arkansas CARES offers intensive treatment for drug addiction in combination with mental
health care for mothers and children and lessons about parenting, finding a job, paying
bills, and other life skills. Its leaders say the comprehensive residential program is
more effective at boosting troubled families into long-term independence than typical drug
treatment, which may consist only of outpatient therapy, or prison, which forces children
into foster care.
Crone and Dr. Smith urged Sen. Hutchinson to promote more federal funding for
comprehensive programs like Arkansas CARES.
They explained that in most cases, abuse or neglect that began in childhood drives girls
and women to mental illness and then to alcoholism and drug abuse as they try to block the
memories of rape and other experiences. |
U.S. Sen. Tim Hutchinson visited the child care center at Arkansas CARES, a substance
abuse treatment program at UAMS, Aug. 23. Cynthia Crone, director of the program (right),
gave him a tour. (JohnPaul Jones)
Dr. G. Richard Smith, chairman of the UAMS Department of Psychiatry, and Teri Patrick, an
early childhood educator at Arkansas CARES, explained the program to U.S. Sen. Tim
Hutchinson. (Johnpaul Jones)
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They added that length of treatment is important if women and their children are going to
rejoin society and thrive. Mothers may need help in the form of a weekly addiction support
group, child care, or housing. Some of their children will need special care for emotional
or learning problems.
”You’re not going to fix in four months what took a lifetime to create,”
Teri Patrick, an early childhood educator with the program, told Sen. Hutchinson.
After a briefing by Crone, Dr. Smith, Linda Worley, M.D., and others, Sen. Hutchinson
toured a cottage, gymnasium, classroom, and child care center which Arkansas CARES leases
on the grounds of the historic Methodist Children’s Home in central Little Rock. (The
program operates a separate facility in North Little Rock.) Crone showed Sen. Hutchinson
preliminary plans for a new facility that would allow Arkansas CARES to bring all of its
services together in one more home-like setting and also provide training and technical
support for CARES-style drug treatment around the nation.
The senator stayed 30 minutes longer than planned to see more of Arkansas CARES and talk
with some of the clients who were in a morning class. Some of the women entered CARES as a
court-ordered alternative to prison; others are there while waiting on court trials which
may put them in prison.
”When I get to go back into the world, it’s going to be a different experience
sober,” the 21-year-old told him before he left.
“When I came here, I didn’t know who our president was. I
didn’t know how old my youngest child was. Now I not only know who the president is,
I know who the senator is!”
Links on This PageUAMS
Scientists: http://www.uams.edu/today/2002/071802/hutchinson.htm
Arkansas CARES: http://www.arcares.uams.edu/
State, KARK: http://www.uams.edu/today/2002/070302/volunteerism.htm
Experts Brief Sen. Hutchinson: http://www.uams.edu/today/2002/060602/Hutchinson.htm
Arkansas CARES A Good Model: http://www.uams.edu/today/2002/052302/arcares.htm
Arkansas CARES Dedicates Playground: http://www.uams.edu/today/2002/030702/cares.htm
Bank of America: http://www.uams.edu/today/011702/bank.htm
© 2002 University of Arkansas for Medical
Sciences (UAMS). A single copy of these materials may be reprinted for noncommercial
personal use only. “UAMS,” “UAMS Medical Center,” “UAMS
Online,” “UAMS Today,” “uams.edu,” and “Here’s to Your
Health” are marks of UAMS.
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08/27/02 |
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