says. “When she has a question, when she doesn’t trust the doctor, when she looks for resources.” But due to cuts in state reimbursement rates, that program, which served more than 900 clients, was eliminated in 2010. Today, Slider’s job focuses on whole neighborhoods instead of helping individual parents. The Health District still aids new mothers with the more intensive Nurse Family Partnership program, but that only serves 150 families — 50 fewer than a few years before. In all, the Health District says 11 different programs for lowincome families have been either eliminated or drastically cut in the past five years. The Early Intervention Program assisted families who had been reported to CPS but had a comparably lower risk of child abuse. It’s gone. The general field nursing program sent public health nurses out to help new parents at the request of hospitals, even if they didn’t qualify for specific programs. Gone. The Work First program found important resources for children of working parents on Medicaid. That’s gone too. If Spokane voters had different priorities, the financial situation for many of the nonprofits could have been different. In 2009, voters were asked to bump up property taxes to raise $5 million to pay for a “Children’s Investment Fund” intended to bring down school dropout rates. A quarter of that money would have funded nonprofits battling child abuse. The initiative didn’t just fail, it was blown out of the water — with nearly two-thirds of Spokane voters opposing it.
TM
A Fresh Start
Kenny Green, a curly-haired 1-year-old, crouches at the Valley Mission Park playground, running his little hands intently through the bark, building piles, then destroying them. Kenny’s sister Sophia, a 3-year-old in pink, proudly holds up the dandelion she found. Her mother, Brajee, laces the flower through one of her blonde pigtails. Her dad sports a Cowboys baseball cap and holds a bright-pink Hello Kitty bag. Neither of these kids was planned. In fact, when Brajee first found out she was pregnant, she was so terrified she met her friends at Applebee’s in tears. Brajee, too, grew up in an abusive home. One time her dad punched her in the ear so hard that she thought her eardrum had burst. It rang for hours. “My mom and my dad both went to prison when I was young,” Brajee says. As a 6-year-old, she and her sister and brother once slept on the roof of a U-Haul truck while their mom looked for a homeless shelter or a cheap hotel. As a 12-year-old, she learned her dad had been running a prostitution business from their trailer. As a 14-year-old, struggling with suicidal thoughts, she cut herself repeatedly on her arms and thighs and landed in a psych ward. Just last week, she got a call: Dad’s back in jail. Her sister’s only 22, she says, but has had four kids in three years, and seen three of them taken away by CPS. But Brajee and her husband plan to break that cycle of abuse. Part of her success has been good fortune: escaping the abuse when she was 14, finding a community and a husband who loved and supported her. Part of it’s been government aid. Through the Health District’s Nurse Family Partnership program, Brajee had a public health nurse to talk to for the first years of parenthood. And some of her success comes down to choice. She chose to stand up to her past. “I fight against it every day. I have a lot of inner issues,” Brajee says, standing in the playground, her kids scampering around her, tears streaming down her cheeks. She struggles with anger. “I know I’m a lot better than my parents were. I just say that they taught me how not to be a parent.” And because of who she is today, she doesn’t regret a thing she’s been through. “We’re very content,” Brajee says. “Look at them, I just don’t understand how someone could abuse their children.” Her son walks down the grass, wearing her daughter’s floppy pink shoes. “I mean, look at how cute they are!” danielw@inlander.com
AUGUST 22, 2013 INLANDER 27