Government, social workers get course on polygamous culture

http://www.fox13now.com/news/kstu-cultural-sensitivity-polygamy-training...

Note: What a time we live in - first a father can't talk to his own children about plural marriage, and in the next instant there are state training programs on polygamy.

NEPHI, Utah - Child welfare protection workers, family crisis shelter workers, police officers and other government employees got a lesson in polygamous culture on Thursday. A group that works with people in fundamentalist Mormon communities is teaching them how to better respond to a situation involving someone from a polygamous community.
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From FOX 13 News - Ben Winslow Reporting

NEPHI, Utah - Child welfare protection workers, family crisis shelter workers, police officers and other government employees got a lesson in polygamous culture on Thursday. A group that works with people in fundamentalist Mormon communities is teaching them how to better respond to a situation involving someone from a polygamous community.

"We need to start treating fundamentalist Mormons with the same cultural sensitivity that we do with other diverse groups in this state," said Patricia Merkley, the coordinator of the Safety Net Committee, a coalition of government agencies, social workers and fundamentalists who work to combat abuse and neglect in isolated communities.

They're also trying to educate government workers who, on occasion, may have to deal with someone from a fundamentalist background. There are an estimated 37,000 people in Utah and surrounding states who consider themselves "fundamentalist Mormons." They broke away from the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints over the practice of polygamy.

In Thursday's training, the social workers learned about basic beliefs of fundamentalist Mormons. They also learned what terms are offensive. Those who put on the training said abuse cases in polygamous societies are no higher than in monogamous ones. Members of the local polygamous community of Rocky Ridge also spoke to the crowd about their beliefs and their opposition to underage marriages and abuse of any form.

"It just takes time and building up of trust," one fundamentalist man, who asked Fox 13 not to use his name, said of the relationship with government workers.

Raids on polygamous communities in the 1940s and 1950s and recently in Texas have created a longstanding mistrust of government, which has made it difficult for social services to reach into the isolated communities. Many who attended the training on Thursday said their preconceived notions about polygamists were shattered.

"I always thought that in polygamous communities these women... polygamy equals abuse," said Jessica Dimas, who works at a women's crisis shelter in Provo. "I now believe that is not the case."

But even after all this outreach, those who live in polygamous communities say there is still some reluctance to report things to government officials, for fear of bringing on a raid on their entire community for their religious beliefs.

"Sometimes there are legitimate abuses that occur within communities," one fundamentalist man told Fox 13. "We would like to have those rooted out. We don't want that. But at the same time, there is that fear that if those are reported, that there may be a rogue agency or rogue agent who decides that polygamy in and of itself is an abusive lifestyle."

It was here in Nephi that polygamist Tom Green was first charged, marking the beginning of modern bigamy prosecutions. The Utah Attorney General's Office has repeatedly said that it would not prosecute bigamy alone, except in cases where there was evidence of underage marriages or abuse. Members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, based in southern Utah, have been convicted on similar charges.

Merkley said the Safety Net Committee has made strides. More than 1,000 people have sought help from the Safety Net Committee in the past two years, from help getting a job to help working with DCFS. They have even offered marriage counseling to plural families.

"Not couples counseling, but extended couples counseling," she chuckled. "They are opening up."

FOX 13's Ben Winslow reports.