Cindy Davis got the call from Denver police on Monday night. “We’ve got someone here who might be your daughter,” the officer said.
Seven months after Sarah Davis walked away from a supposedly secure private residential treatment facility in Fort Collins, the severely mentally ill 15-year-old was found.
A few days before, Sarah had identified herself as a juvenile runaway to workers at a homeless shelter where she had gone for food. She even told them the address in northeast Denver where she was hiding. A shelter worker reported the information to the Denver Department of Human Services, which notified the police.
When Cindy was reunited with her daughter Tuesday night, they both squealed and wept tears of joy. “She’s definitely in a very, very high cycle right now,” said Cindy, referring to the familiar symptoms of Sarah’s bipolar disorder.
Cindy knows that won’t last. And while she and her husband David were “elated” that Sarah has been found, Cindy said they’re terrified about what happens next.
Charles Speich, a licensed professional counselor for the Denver Family Therapy Center, said the future for families struggling with a severely mentally ill child is bleak.
Immediately, the family faces the challenge of getting Sarah the intensive psychiatric care she needs within the constraints of a pathetically underfunded juvenile court system. After she undergoes the psychiatric evaluation ordered by a Jefferson County judge, she could be put on a waiting list for weeks or months to get into a treatment program.
Then they’ll face the challenge of paying for it.
Last year, after Sarah was ordered into treatment at the state hospital at Fort Logan, the family was hit with a $13,000 bill. While the Davises have health insurance coverage through his job at Coors, they still are in debt for the court-ordered services not covered during the three weeks Sarah was there.
So Cindy is working frantically to get Sarah designated as disabled under the federal Supplemental Security Income program, which would make her eligible for Medicaid coverage. But Speich said SSI routinely rejects applications two or three times before a designation is made.
“Sarah certainly qualifies, based on the severity of her illness,” he explained, but that won’t make any difference. “That’s just the way it works with SSI.”
Even if she gets treatment, Speich said, cases like Sarah’s are difficult and heartbreaking.
“In an ideal world, there would be case managers, housing situations and medications available to help these young people. The reality is that they seldom get the help they need, so a girl like Sarah usually ends up homeless, in and out of jail, off and on the streets, exploited by older men and at high risk for sexual and physical assault,” he said.
One huge advantage for Sarah is her family.
“On a scale of one to 10, Cindy is a nine or 10” in terms of her relentless advocacy for Sarah, he said. “She’s amazingly devoted in a situation where there’s high burnout. These illnesses are tremendously disruptive to families.”
Cindy said she can see how Sarah’s disease has changed everyone. The four other children are frustrated and struggle to understand. Her husband is “tearing his hair out” with worry, trying to do the right thing for everyone and trying to keep the family afloat financially.
As for herself, Cindy said she feels “shell-shocked.”
“I’m very numb these days.”
When the police called to say they had Sarah, she rejoiced unabashedly, unleashing months of worry that the next time she saw her daughter, it would be in a hospital morgue. “My nightmare is over,” she told me Monday night.
By the end of the week, with Sarah in a juvenile jail, her arms scarred from cutting herself, her hair cut off in ragged clumps, her psychosis apparent even to casual observers, the crushing reality was bearing down hard on Cindy.
Her nightmare has just begun.
Diane Carman’s column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. She can be reached at 303-820-1489 or dcarman@denverpost.com.
