Jasmine's Cause

I should have started this blog 2 years ago, but sometimes when trauma happens, you just cant fully talk about it until you start to heal. I feel like I am in a place finally where I can continue on in my mission. I am starting a long hard process that includes starting an online petition and a fight for what I feel is right. I hope you will support the cause, and follow the process. I am going to include here a letter I have started to send out to friends and family. Please check back as this is a work in progress.

Dear Friends and Family,

As some of you know, 2008 was the most difficult, heart- wrenching, and overwhelming year for our family. For all of you who knew about our horrendous year, thank you for all of your love and support. For those of you that don't, let me tell you a story:

Friday, November 16th 2007, Started out to be a typical November day. Bryan was hunting, I was working at the salon, and Jasmine was with my parents. That would turn out to be the day that would change our lives as we knew it forever.

Let me back track to 2 years before...Jasmine was 4 years old and in preschool. She was doing extremely well, and advancing before our eyes, She was clearly ready for school, beyond ready. We knew that because her birthday was in November, she wouldn't be able to start kindergarten until she was almost 6. So we decided that maybe home schooling would be a good option. My mother for the past 7 years had been teaching piano lessons to a family that homeschooled. After getting to know the parents and talking with them the mother offered to help us homeschool Jasmine. It seemed like a perfect situation. Jasmine would go over there on the days that Bryan and I were working and we would all use the same curriculum to teach Jasmine. It went well for almost 2 years but we decided to go in a different direction september before her 6th birthday. Back to November 16th...

It was friday, and after work my mom came to pick me up and drop Jasmine and I off at home. They were both acting really strange on the ride home. When we got into the house, My mom told me I needed to sit down, she really needed to talk to me. Jasmine went into her room looking like she was in trouble. My mom then told me the most horrifying thing I could imagine. Jasmine had been reading peter rabbit with my mom earlier that day, and completely broke down. She told my mom that the whole time she had been going to the "homeschool house" She was being sexually abused everyday. And the offender had threatened to kill her numerous times if she told anyone. Since she hadn't been going there, she finally felt safe enough to tell. I felt like I had been shot in the chest. I didn't know what to do. My husband wasn't there, and I was feeling so many emotions all at once, heartbreak, sadness, and confusion, helplessness, rage, for the first time I felt like I could actually kill someone. I didn't know where I was supposed to turn or how I was supposed to help her. After I sat and cried for a while, I walked into my daughters room where I found her curled up on her bed scared and crying. I hugged her and told her I loved her with all my heart, and I was proud of her for being brave enough to tell her "mimi" she was safe now and that everything was going to be alright. At that moment though, I had no idea how I was going to make that happen. Jasmine ended up crying herself to sleep that night in my arms. The next day I called a client who used to be an advocate. She brought me information that day with phone numbers, a list of counselors and a book for parents of sexual assault/abuse victims.

We then started the longest most difficult journey from that day. The year-long process of

finding counseling, working with the justice system, talking to detectives, prosecutors, defense attorneys, etc. We went through the ups and downs of charging the offender, offering plea bargain after plea bargain to try to avoid having to go through the trauma of a trial. We ended up going to trial, but moments before the trial started, the family took a deal, and 6 weeks later I was relieved to be at the sentencing and done with that horrible chapter of our life. We were looking forward to putting that behind us and moving forward with healing our beautiful child. Then at the beginning of february 2009, we were hit with some more bad news, thus the reason for this letter.

At our weekly appointment with Jasmine's counselor, we were told that the grant her therapy was covered under had run out, and all of the cases for sexual assault/abuse victims had to be closed by the end of the month, so we had to find another counselor. We couldn't believe it! With no warning! For the last year, our daughter had been a different person, it had taken her so long to trust her counselor and we were starting to see little glimpses of the Jasmine we knew before again, and now we were told we had to start over with someone else. We were told that we could maybe come back when another grant was available, but most places were restructuring to offer mental heath therapy to low income families. I talked to some people and did a lot of research and was alarmed and disgusted by what I found, This happens EVERY year! The funding for sexual assault/abuse victims and crime victims is the first to be cut EVERY YEAR!!! There is not any ongoing funding for programs for these victims. YWCA offers support, but it is only temporary, during the legal process and a short while after, as they also have too many victims to help and not enough support or funding. There is not permanent funding for programs at all, only grants that last 6 months to a year. Once the money runs out, these is a 6 month to a year waiting period for more money to come in.

I am outraged as I believe everyone should be. I cannot sit back and not fight for ongoing funding for these victims. All of the cases closed, where Jasmine was going, are children, like my own. They have been violated, broken down, and will be dealing with the aftermath of the horrible crime that was made against them. I felt from the beginning that although there are some programs available, what is offered is not enough. You only get so much support and most of it comes after the guilty verdict. I feel like someone has to do something about it. And I am going to try. I am first writing to everyone I know and telling Jasmine's story. I am then writing to politicians, congressmen, government, everyone I can think of about the funding situation, and I am starting an online petition to change the funding. I am standing up for my daughter, and asking all of you to stand with me as I not only stand up for Jasmine, but all the sexual assault/ abuse victims in Washington. I believe we can make a difference if we work together. Please Help Me! Spread the word. Join causes against sex offenders, and in support of sexually abused children. Write to everyone you can think of. I am working on the online petition, a link will follow once it is done. A change can only happen if a large number of us stand up together

I don't think that funding for these victims is too much to ask! I do think that the state asking these victims to walk away from counseling and work on healing on their own until these are funds again and deal with the fact that funding for help for them is not important is too much to ask, and frankly ridiculous!

Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I hope you will feel compelled to tell everyone you know about this, and fight with me.

If you have any questions please email me at bdbaughman@comcast.net

Take Care,

Donna Baughman