Hope Haven Director Terry Latham reflects on 2 decades of helping children

WAVELAND -- On a summer day in 1996, Terry Latham's life changed forever when he saw a 4-year-old child peering at him through a screen door as he drove away from the kids shelter he had just helped build. Overcome with emotion, Latham pulled over halfway down the block and sobbed over what he had just seen and what his future might have in store for him.

That year, Latham had become director of Hope Haven Children's Services, a community organization to help abused and neglected children in Hancock County. Now, after nearly 20 years in that post, he is retiring.

Latham never planned to work with abused children. After retiring from the U.S. Navy, he worked for a Vietnam veterans program at the University of Southern Mississippi.

An idea for funding

In 1995, he met a group of people trying to open a shelter for their startup charity, Hope Haven.

"They were talking about how hard it was to raise funds," he said. "I casually mentioned to them if anybody had looked at state grants or federal grants."

The Hope Haven founders asked Latham to help them apply for a grant, so he did. A few months later, the founders showed up at his office and told him they had been approved for a $258,000 state grant. He said they also asked him to serve as Hope Haven's director, because the grant required a shelter manager who had a master's degree and experience in the social services field.

Latham hesitated at first but eventually took the job, which required his attention 24 hours a day and paid a meager annual salary of about $26,000, considerably less than his job at USM.

The Hope Haven shelter opened in summer 1996 and served about 3,000 kids that year.

Helping hands everywhere

Latham said he found helping hands everywhere, both within and outside the community.

"People could see, touch and feel what we were doing," he said. "And they knew it was good."

Though Hope Haven stopped managing the shelter after 2005's Hurricane Katrina, it offered other programs, offering child abuse prevention training, child forensic interviews for law enforcement, direct financial support for children in need and services to help children's transition from foster care to adulthood.

Latham said one crucial lesson he learned from Hope Haven was the importance of early intervention.

"Children are amazing in their ability to come back after having horrible things happen to them," he said. "The young children rebound. It's the older teenagers who usually don't."

'Strange new environment'

His most memorable experience was in summer 1996 when Hope Haven took in its first child, Bubba, a 4-year-old who had been severely sexually abused by his parents, Latham said.

"You couldn't even look at him. He was still in diapers, for crying out loud," he said. "I walked out the door of the shelter and got in my car. He was standing there looking out the screen door."

Latham recalled the scared, questioning look on Bubba's face, as if the child were worried about the strange new environment that surrounded him.

"I got halfway around the block, and I pulled over and bawled my eyes out," he said. "That's not the first time I cried in this job, but I think it was the most emotional. That was because I suddenly realized that you're seeing the results of child abuse and neglect, not just hearing the words."

Bubba would run and hide under a bed if he saw anything that looked like a camera because his parents had filmed the abuse they inflicted upon him, Latham said.

"He stayed with us for about six months," he said. "When he left, he was as normal a child as you ever wanted to see. Six months, and it was like nothing ever happened."

When a foster family agreed to adopt Bubba, Latham attended the adoption proceeding.

Forgetting old memories

"He was in there with a little coat and tie on," he said. "I stood in the back of the room and watched them go through the adoption proceedings. I didn't approach him or say anything, and he was walking out and he turned and looked (at me), and it was like, 'Do I know that guy? No, maybe not,' and he left. Honestly, I was pleased he did not remember me because that means he didn't remember a lot of the other things."

Latham will retire Dec. 31. Hope Haven Assistant Director Shirley Bates will succeed him. Bates is a former Hope Haven volunteer and University of Mississippi alumna.

This story was originally published December 23, 2015 at 5:50 PM with the headline "Hope Haven Director Terry Latham reflects on 2 decades of helping children ."