They've spent their entire lives in captivity, largely isolated from everyone except their mother and their captors.
Now Jaycee Dugard's two children, ages 11 and 15, will have to be introduced to a world – the real world – foreign to them.
"I really can't fathom it," said Sheila Boxley, president of the Child Abuse Prevention Center in Sacramento. "People living in isolation tend to be at risk for all sorts of things" and will need immediate, long-term treatment, Boxley added.
Carl Probyn, Dugard's stepfather, said in media reports Friday that the two young girls "look healthy. They haven't been educated, but they're happy, they're smiling." Dugard still has the children, and they're staying in a Bay Area motel, Probyn said.
The children were raised in the backyard of Phillip and Nancy Garrido, who allegedly kidnapped their mother from the El Dorado County town of Meyers in 1991, when she was 11. Authorities have said Phillip Garrido, a convicted sex offender, fathered the two girls with her. The Garridos were arrested earlier this week; they pleaded not guilty to multiple counts of kidnapping and rape in an El Dorado County courtroom Friday.
While there is little precedent for what the two girls have suffered and while many of the details of their plight remain cloudy, a few things are certain, said Boxley and other child abuse counselors.
First, child protection workers will conduct an investigation, evaluating their health and the health of their mother. Investigators generally try to keep children with their parents, unless they determine that the parents are unfit or unable to care for them.
If the two girls remain with their mother, child protective service workers will probably fade into the background, said Robert Wilson, executive director of Sacramento Child Advocates. Other care providers will then begin to repair some of the emotional damage the girls have likely suffered.
A public victim's compensation fund will probably take care of any costs associated with their care, and the care of their mother. They'll also likely benefit from professionals willing to help them for free, Wilson said.
It will be tough, especially in the short term, because the girls will be healing while two of the only people they knew are adjudicated in connection with the abduction of their mother.
"There will be an evidentiary exam," said Boxley. "The condition of the children and their mom are all going to be elements of the case."
"Hopefully," added Wilson, "they are being allowed to just acclimate to a new environment before they spend a significant amount of time with law enforcement."
The support the girls receive from their family may prove the most important factor in their healing. Their grandparents said Thursday they were thrilled to hear that their mother is still alive, and now safe.
"In the best possible situation, there was healthy attachment with the mother," too, said Boxley, referring to Dugard.
In the end, said Wilson, "children are very resilient. (Dugard) is going to be a lot more difficult. It's just unknowable what that will do to anybody."
Source Sac Bee
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