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Mentoring program focuses on children of prison inmates Date published: 5/15/2008
BY AMY FLOWERS UMBLE
Nearly a year ago, Kandyce Morris woke her mom up at 2:30 in the morning. "You lied to me," the preteen accused her sleepy mother. Kathy Guilliams rolled over in the bed she shared with Kandyce's younger sister and tried to figure out what had happened. Unable to sleep, Kandyce had turned on the computer, got on the Internet and typed in her father's name. She learned he'd been arrested on drug charges and sent to a federal prison in West Virginia. Kandyce, a quiet 11-year-old who likes to keep to herself, might have sensed something months earlier when her dad made an emotional conversion at his mother's church. Perhaps she felt undercurrents in the adults' hushed conversations. Her dad had gone to prison the month before, and her mom tried to protect her by not telling Kandyce. Something was up But Kandyce has been a daddy's girl from birth. She shares her father's brown eyes, smile, birthmark on the right thigh, shy personality and love of hair styling. Before he went to jail, her dad had moved to West Virginia. Still, Kandyce had seen him every weekend. But after his arrest, she hadn't seen him. She knew something was going on and was determined to find out. Once she did, Kandyce's anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorders grew worse. She worried about her father almost constantly. "She worships her daddy," Guilliams said. "She wakes up talking about him. She goes to bed talking about him." But Kandyce didn't want to talk about him being in prison. Already extremely private, she withdrew even more. Her schoolwork suffered. And at school, kids teased her when she brought in a photo of her dad, dressed in tan prison garb. SOMEONE TO TALK TO Kandyce couldn't stop worrying about her father. And Guilliams couldn't stop worrying about Kandyce. She loves her 3-year-old sister, but she'd always wanted an older sibling, someone to talk to. So Guilliams brought Kandyce to Rappahannock Big Brothers Big Sisters. Typically, the mentoring program has a 60-child long waiting list to match volunteers with kids needing a mentor. And someone like Kandyce can be a tough match, said Andrea Springer Collins, a recruiter for the agency. The preteen has some learning disabilities and Guilliams said she would be picky about any mentor chosen for her daughter.
Date published: 5/15/2008
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