Oregon targets domestic violence mom by mom

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Sonja Keck was 24 years old and a mother of two small boys when her husband began to push and slap her around.

He didn't do it in front of the kids.

"Always after they fell asleep," she recalls.

After finding the courage to divorce, Keck moved in with another man and had two more boys.

He was an alcoholic, she says. One day, in a drunken rage, he took out his gun and shot their car. Nobody was hurt, but it all took place in front of the kids.

Keck and her boys moved out. Still, she didn't see herself as a victim of domestic violence or understand how violence had affected her family until after the state took her kids into foster care because caseworkers felt the boys weren't safe with her.

"I felt like I failed," Keck says softly. "I felt like I was responsible."

Her story isn't unusual. Domestic violence is one of the main reasons why state caseworkers remove children from their parents' homes.

But one thing is different: Keck got help from a program that pairs counselors experienced in helping battered women with child welfare caseworkers. The basic idea is that if mom is safe, her kids will be, too.

The pairing can help children avoid foster care altogether or return home more quickly. As a result, the Oregon Department of Human Services hopes to expand the program throughout the state.

Keck had contact with the state child welfare system before caseworkers took her boys Dec. 31, 2006.

A few months earlier, a caseworker told Keck she needed to get therapy for herself and for her children. Keck says she felt alone and depressed. Her boys were acting out. But therapy seemed overwhelming.

"I was working two jobs," Keck says. "I was like: 'Are you kidding me? When am I going to find the time and the money for that?' "

Her stress mounted as the holidays neared. Keck says her 3-year-old was misbehaving, and one frustrating day, she pulled down his training pants and spanked him hard enough to leave a bruise.

"I can't take this back. I can't change it," she says, tears rolling down her cheeks.

After the spanking, Keck's former mother-in-law took the toddler to her house and then to the hospital. On New Year's Eve, Keck found police outside her door.

She remembers an officer saying: It's been reported that you beat your son.

"It was the worst day of my life," Keck says.

In need of a Safe Start

When a caseworker investigating a child abuse report suspects the mom also is being abused, sometimes the only option is to take the kids into protective care and pass along the number of a shelter or counselor and urge mom to get help.

But that's not what happens in Gresham, where the local child welfare office is one of 15 sites nationwide participating in a federally funded experiment known as Safe Start.

For the past two years, domestic violence counselors have worked alongside state caseworkers. The counselors, who work for nonprofit advocacy groups, often go out on the first call with the caseworker. While the caseworker focuses on the children, the counselors help mom -- or, on rare occasions, dad -- figure out how to get away from the abuser.

Gwen Thompson, a state caseworker for nine years, says having a domestic violence advocate on the scene changes the dynamics.

"No matter how fair or compassionate I am, the parent sees me as a threat," Thompson says. "I didn't realize how that hindered my ability to intervene effectively until you have an advocate with you who steps in and starts planning with mom for her safety, which ultimately means the safety of her kids."

Researchers from the Rand Corp. and Portland State University are compiling data on families involved with the Gresham Safe Start project. But it will be at least two years before they have numbers to support the program's benefits.

Oregon officials aren't waiting. Though it's early in the state's 2009-11 budgeting process, the Department of Human Services will request $10 million to put domestic violence counselors in state child welfare offices across Oregon.

That kind of spending request won't be easy to secure in a shaky economy. But the idea is gathering legislative support because of its potential to bring immediate help to parents and children who have experienced severe trauma.

If no state money is found, the Gresham Safe Start project will end by August 2010.

The long road home

Several weeks after her kids were taken into foster care, Keck connected with one of the domestic violence advocates working at the Gresham child welfare office.

At first, Keck admits, she was in denial. But as she talked with Nanci Jarrard, a domestic violence victims advocate with Volunteers of America, she began to see that she'd picked violent and controlling partners.

Jarrard told Keck about services available, including help with her rent at a time when she didn't have much work and needed to focus on her boys.

Keck began attending a support group for battered women. She and her boys began parent-child therapy with Laura Eccles, a counselor for the nonprofit Listen to Kids who also works at the Gresham office.

"We talked about the impact on the family of the abusive partners," Eccles says. "How it impacted her parenting, the children's behavior and their relationship with their mom."

Eccles and Jarrard didn't tell Keck what to do. They did advise: "Domestic violence plays a role in your home, and until you're ready to see that, it will continue to play a role in your home."

They also helped Keck to understand the legal processes involved with getting her children back.

Caseworkers and lawyers "threw words at me," says Keck, who has a GED but didn't graduate from high school. "I had no idea what they were talking about."

The two older boys were allowed to return to their mom first. Keck had all four back with her by July last year. Today, they are 12, 9, 4 and 3. And Keck, now a single mom managing on her own, couldn't be prouder.

One recent morning, Keck sat on top of a picnic table keeping an eye on her two older boys chasing each other around a local park.

When their boisterous play turned to bickering, Keck sent one to their van and put the other on a nearby bench with instructions to sit quietly.

This fall, Keck begins classes at Clackamas Community College, where she plans to study criminal justice. She's not sure what career she'll pursue, but says helping other women who are victims of domestic violence will be a part of it.

Keck, now 32, says she feels "awesome" and "empowered."

"I don't live in fear," she says. "I don't look over my shoulder, and I didn't fail my kids."

Michelle Cole: 503-294-5143; michellecole@news.oregonian.com