DUMAS — It’s been a year now, and Sister Judy Warmbold, DC, hasn’t regretted a single day.
“The people in Arkansas and the people in the Delta are so proud of their communities,” she said during an interview at her office at the DePaul Health Center in Dumas. “They’re so willing to help one another.”
Sister Judy is a licensed professional counselor who agreed to come to rural southeast Arkansas as part of the Daughters of Charity Services of Arkansas. The services include medical, dental and mental health care at St. Elizabeth Health Center plus a free-standing wellness center in Gould, the DePaul Health Center for family practice and social services in Dumas, and community initiatives, such as diabetes education, throughout the region.
“My mission experience as a Daughter of Charity prepared me for the mission here in Dumas and Gould in a staff ’dedicated to Christian values and service as we provide quality, holistic care to individuals and communities in southeast Arkansas.’ What a delight to initiate affordable counseling opportunities closer to home.”
In 1958, she joined the order in St. Louis at the age of 18. Her mother not only sensed that Sister Judy was interested in becoming a nun, she pointed out that the Daughters of Charity had a lot of freedom.
“They didn’t have to go out in pairs and they worked with people whose needs were not being met by anyone else,” she recalled. “It was such an exciting time to be part of the Church just as Vatican II was taking hold because we were becoming more mobile. There was so much we could do.”
“The Daughters,” as they are known in Dumas, were founded in the early 17th century in France by St. Vincent de Paul and St. Louise de Marillac to work with the poorest of the poor. The Arkansas Delta fits the description.
“Two years ago, I was asked to provide mental health services in Gould and Dumas. I called Magnolia about getting an Arkansas license and had to take three additional graduate courses at Missouri State before I could come to Arkansas.”
While in Springfield, Mo., she set up “clinics” in four separate Catholic churches as a private practitioner, creatively figuring out how to find clients in need of her services.
“The diocese paid for my travel,” she said, “the parishes offered the space, and I worked out a fee structure with the churches, applied for grants and became a provider for insurance.”
That creativity will come in handy. To find clients and increase the use of her services in southeast Arkansas, she’s put together some programs and is looking at partnerships with other agencies and churches. For example, she gathered grandparents who are the primary caregivers for their grandchildren at one of two programs Sept. 27 in Gould and Dumas.
“There are 70,000 adults raising their grandchildren in Arkansas, so we want to bring them together and provide them with resources. I plan to facilitate, but they are the experts,” she said.
Partnering with other institutions is another creative approach to building her clientele. She is in the preliminary stage of a collaborative relationship with Phillips Community College in DeWitt.
“I’d like to work one day a week on the campus to provide counseling services to the students and the people in DeWitt. We’re already planning a community education series in Dumas on caregiving of the aging presented by our staff.”
Education is a key component in all of her work. Her first mission was teaching junior high students in Los Angeles before she left for Catholic University to earn a master’s degree in theology. Graduating in 1967, she began teaching high school religion in Chicago and found herself in the Diocese of El Paso in the 1980s doing rural ministry formation.
“We were a mobile team sent out to train laity to take on some of the pastoral leadership as it became evident that we were facing a priest shortage.”
She attended the National Pastoral Institute in Kansas City, Mo., for lay leadership training along with representatives from other dioceses, and eventually joined the Institute staff. In 1989, after a family crisis, Sister Judy asked for a sabbatical from her teaching duties to study counseling at the University of Missouri in Kansas City.
“It was the AIDS crisis and families needed support as their loved ones died. I trained as a volunteer with an AIDS organization and worked part-time in a new AIDS unit that opened in a nursing home.
“Into the 1990s, I worked with HIV patients and it was hard. Until 1993, when the new drugs were available, everyone died. After 1993, it was a chronic disease and fewer people were dying.”
In Arkansas, Sister Judy is able to combine her background as an educator with her professional credentials as a counselor. The Daughters of Charity Services stress health management with diabetes self-care education, among other programs. She is also educating residents to seek mental health care just like they would choose to visit the clinic for a physical problem.
“There seems to be a stigma attached to the ’mental health’ label, so I use other terms to encourage people to seek help for stress, anxiety and depression. And these are all serious problems among people who are chronically ill or facing health issues without any resources.”
Her dream is to have a network of mental health providers to meet the diverse needs of the Delta, including the employee assistance programs, schools and prisons in the area.
“Rural areas have their own problems in addition to the usual stress of work and family,” she explained. “There is isolation, which may magnify abuse and addiction issues combined with lack of transportation and job opportunities.”
It’s a pretty simple proposition, no matter where Sister Judy finds her clients.
“All I need is a room with two chairs,” she laughed, “and I’m open for business.”
Daughters of Charity Services of Arkansas is a member of Ascension Health, the nation’s largest Catholic health system.
