THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 7, 1994 TAG: 9408070047
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MATTHEW BOWERS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Long : 146 lines
The 14-year-old girl was hysterical. Crying. Trembling. She had a two-handed death grip on Jacquie Crumlich's arm.
``I'm not going home!'' the girl said over and over. ``I'm not going home!''
The scratches on the girl's face and chest were as real as her terror. They backed up her story that her mother had attacked her, and gave reason to her fear that the woman would do it again.
Crumlich and her husband, Brian, first met the girl earlier in the day when the panicked teen, desperate for help, banged blindly on their front door. Parents themselves, their hearts immediately went out to her. Certainly they would find her help.
They never imagined it would be so difficult.
Social Services. Police. Runaway Hotline and Crisis Center counselors. Magistrates. Juvenile court. Tidewater Psychiatric Institute. All expressed sympathy. None could or would help.
The girl had to go back home, everyone said. Some could provide services only if a parent gave permission. In fact, several officials told the Crumlichs they were courting criminal charges of harboring a runaway if they didn't return the girl to her mother.
The girl - and the Crumlichs - had stumbled into the gray area of the abused teen. The girl was old enough to speak for herself, but was still a child in the eyes of the law. She was still subject to the very person she said was hurting her.
And unless a bone was broken or blood was running, there weren't many places for her to turn for help.
``Children have no voice,'' said Betty Wade Coyle, executive director of the Hampton Roads Committee for Prevention of Child Abuse. ``Unless it's something totally and really life-threatening, where is a teen's voice?''
Gail F. Heath, the regional coordinator for the Child Protective Services arm of Social Services, called it one of the toughest areas for social workers.
``We have to prove imminent danger to life or health'' before removal from a home, she said. ``Which is difficult with a teen.''
The law assumes that infants and small children can't protect themselves as well as older children, so it's easier to show that they're in danger. And most emergency foster homes are set up to handle younger children.
``Frankly, I don't think there's a lot out there for teenagers,'' Heath said.
The girl knocked at the Crumlichs' townhouse about 1:30 p.m. on a Wednesday afternoon in late June. Crying and shaking, she asked to use their phone. Her scratches were red and fresh.
She dialed Social Services' number from memory. A worker told her she had to go home. After Brian Crumlich described the girl's injuries, the worker said someone would come see her.
The Crumlichs provided a drink and ointment while the girl told her story.
She had been living with an aunt in Philadelphia, and only recently had moved south to where her mother had been living for two years. Her father was only recently out of jail in Philadelphia.
She said she had called Social Services the previous two days, after her mother whipped her with a wire hanger and threw her against a wall, bloodying her nose. Workers both times said there was no need to visit the home.
A social worker arrived at the Crumlichs' house about 4 p.m. and examined the girl's wounds. ``She said: `Oh, they're just minor,' '' Jacquie Crumlich said. `` `I have seen abused kids with marks much worse than that.' . . . I said: `How bad do they have to be?' ''
The social worker went to talk to the mother. The Crumlichs picked up the phone book. Different agencies and crisis centers and their own church told them the same thing: She's underage. We need parental consent.
A woman with the Runaway Hotline said that at least the incident would be documented in case there are more problems. ``I said: `What happens if she's dead?' '' Jacquie Crumlich said. ``She said: `Well, then we can prosecute the mother.' ''
The girl's mother told the social worker that the girl scratched herself with a pen. The mother was angry at her daughter, but the social worker didn't feel the girl was in ``imminent danger.'' The Crumlichs also had called the police, and the officer who arrived said there wasn't much he could do other than go along with the social worker.
Jacquie Crumlich and a friend drove the girl to a magistrate, who said he had no jurisdiction. A juvenile court intake officer said he couldn't intervene unless the girl committed a crime.
Out of options and more than an hour past the 7:30 p.m. deadline set by Social Services for getting the girl home, they walked into police headquarters, the girl holding tight to Jacquie Crumlich's arm.
It's a delicate, delicate situation, and it's real hard for a social worker to tell what's really going on,'' Child Protective Services' Heath said.
State law and procedures lean strongly toward keeping families together. Of the few group homes that exist for teens, most are for those who have gotten into trouble with the law.
A rare resource for teenage girls is Seton House, where they can stay for up to two weeks but must have a parent's permission. But the privately funded home, the only one of its kind in South Hampton Roads, has just 12 beds and is chronically short of money.
Susan M. Jones, a former teacher and juvenile probation officer who resigned as director of Seton House in February, sympathized with social workers' large caseloads and rigid guidelines that must be followed to avoid lawsuits from angry parents. But she sympathized more with the troubled teens.
``There are some kids you just can't leave in homes. We've all seen that,'' Jones said. ``A lot of people act like a 14-year-old or a 15-year-old are old enough to protect themselves. No, they're not. Not emotionally or psychologically.''
Abused teens can feel more trapped than abused spouses. In addition to economic and emotional dependence on their abusers, they're too young to drive or get jobs. Leaving home just isn't a possibility, unless someone takes them in.
And as scary as it is getting beat up, it can be scarier to turn in your parents.
``You're calling to say you need help,'' said Nancy M. Holcomb, director of youth services for Tidewater Psychiatric Institute in Virginia Beach. ``But when you call to say: `I need help,' you get your parents in trouble.''
The Crumlichs understood all this, but didn't like it.
``Everything goes back to parental consent,'' Jacquie Crumlich said.
``The parents have the right to do just about anything they want to do to the kids. . . . Where do the kids get their rights to a safe place? It's like the kids are the property of the parents until age 18.''
There was a happy ending, sort of, for the Crumlichs and the 14-year-old they tried to help. The police that night found the girl a spot in Seton House and got her mother's consent Jacquie Crumlich followed the girl to the teen shelter, to make sure she wasn't returned to her mother.
The Crumlichs weren't allowed to talk to her in Seton House. A couple of weeks later, they learned that she had returned to Philadelphia to live with relatives. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
L. TODD SPENCER
When Brian and Jacquie Crumlich tried to help a 14-year-old girl,
they found that few options exist for teenagers who have been abused
by a parent. ``The parents have the right to do just about anything
they want to do with the kids...Where do the kids get their rights
to a safe place? It's like the kids are the property of the parents
until age 18,'' Jacquie Crumlich said.
Graphic
CALLING FOR HELP
If you've got or know of a child-abuse problem, you can call for
help:
State Hotline.. 1-800-552-7096
National Hotline.. 1-800-422-4453
KEYWORDS: CHILD ABUSE by CNB