THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, June 13, 1996 TAG: 9606110168
SECTION: NORFOLK COMPASS PAGE: 03 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: THUMBS UP
SOURCE: BY KATHRYN DARLING, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 115 lines
UNTIL SHE WAS old enough to go to school, Sue Baumann spent her days playing near the family car while her migrant-worker parents picked fruit and vegetables in the fields of Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana and Michigan.
Other families also left their children at their cars.
``It wouldn't be allowed today,'' Baumann said. ``The children were dirty and nasty, with flies swarming on them and nobody taking care of them.''
She was only 5 years old when she decided to take care of the other migrant workers' children. She changed their diapers, fed them their milk or water bottle, and played with them. Eventually, the mothers recognized her as a baby sitter and would give her a quarter or whatever they could on payday.
Now, as the Norfolk Social Services Board's case manager for pregnant substance abusers, Baumann is still taking care of children in need of help.
``One of those babies with the flies on them has grown up'' and now is one of her clients, she said. ``That's the same type of care they got when they were babies.''
Nearly all of the women Baumann sees are addicted to crack, and she offers them and their children a choice. Her role is to ``empower the clients to take back control of their lives,'' she said. ``They didn't choose to become addicted, but they can choose to stop.''
In May, the National Association of Case Management named Baumann case manager of the year and gave her the XCEL award at its national conference in Nashville. The award recognizes case managers who develop their clients' personal growth and recovery through empowerment and self-employment.
When a pregnant crack addict wants to join the city's outpatient substance abuse program, her case is assigned to Baumann.
The woman must sign a contract agreeing to attend the daytime substance abuse treatment program at the Substance Abuse Services Center on Little Creek Road, Baumann said. The woman also must agree to not do drugs, keep all of her doctors' appointments, attend a 12-step program and abide by the program's rules.
When the women join the program they get Baumann's full support. She will set up the first appointment with an obstetrician and even go with the mother if needed, ensure she follows through on the rest of her prenatal care and provide transportation for the doctor's visits if the mother has no way to get there.
She also guides her clients through the maze of social services, helping them get signed up for Aid for Dependent Children, the Women, Infants and Children food program and Medicaid. If they are homeless, she helps them get an apartment and furniture.
After the women have been established in their recovery, Baumann will help them with job training and refer them to employers. While they are in the drug treatment program, the women are not encouraged to work - they need to focus on their recovery and re-establishing their lives, Baumann said.
Until recently, the minute a mother asked for help with crack addiction, her children were taken from her, Baumann said. To keep the family a unit, she and Shirley Roman, a social worker with the Norfolk Department of Social Services, make home visits together, ensuring that the mother is doing what she says she is doing: that the children are well cared for, that their immunizations are up to date and that they are attending school.
Babies born to crack-addicted mothers are costly to taxpayers, Baumann said. Five crack babies in a local hospital's intensive care unit for 60 days will cost a million dollars, she said. Many require care after that, some for the rest of their lives.
``Every time a baby is born drug free, it makes it all worthwhile,'' said Baumann.
Annette Simmons, 33, who completed the daytime substance abuse program, came to Baumann last summer. She was five months pregnant and addicted to crack. Simmons said she had left New York to move in with her sister in Norfolk when she lost everything because of her addiction, even custody of three of her children. They now are in foster care in New York.
Simmons said her sister and Baumann taught her how to get better, and Baumann, she said, ``told me not to give up. She reassured me.''
Simmons said she had wanted to give up the baby she was about to have. Baumann gave her a list of adoption agencies to contact, but ``she must have known I wasn't going to do it.'' Simmons decided to keep her baby girl, who was born drug free Jan. 8.
The whole family may soon be back together. Simmons' 14-year-old son joined her in November, and Baumann and Simmons have been working to bring the three children home from foster care.
Simmons said she will be going back to school to get her high school equivalency diploma. Then she plans to get computer training at Tidewater Tech.
``I've learned to live life all over again,'' Simmons said.
Carol Nelson, Baumann's supervisor for five years, said Baumann has tremendous rapport with her clients and ``has always gone three extra miles for her people.''
The city provides many services to the women, but the mothers often need items the city doesn't provide, such as clothes, diapers for newborns and even furniture. Baumann knows how to find resources to fill those needs.
Much of what she gets is new. Department stores and warehouses have been willing to help, and Virginia Power even donated a van so Baumann could drive to the crack areas to recruit women to the program.
Baumann invents resources, said Nelson, and ``she puts together whatever is needed to help her clients,'' she said.
Baumann said she does have an ``innate ability to finagle,'' but it's not all that difficult to do. When people ask her for a list of her resources, she holds up the yellow pages, she said. MEMO: If you know someone deserving of a Thumbs Up! feature, call
Kathryn Darling at 446-2286. ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by RICHARD L. DUNSTON
Sue Baumann helps women addicted to crack take control of their
lives. by CNB