Written by Melinda Charlet
On Thursday, May 7, St. George resident Shirlee Draper graduated from the University of Utah with her Bachelor of Social Work degree. This in itself is a great accomplishment for a single woman with four children–two of whom have special needs–but is not the first or last for this amazing and inspiring person who left a Fundamentalist Latter-day Saint (FLDS) community a little over ten years ago. Draper said she plans to use her personal experiences and education to advocate for others from plural communities.
Draper was born into a polygamist family and grew up in an environment where strong, outspoken women were not acceptable. However, Draper defied these social norms and earned her associate degree from Mohave Community College. As custom in the FLDS culture, she was assigned to a husband and had four children, who she says are the light of her life.
Two of her Draper’s children have significant health problems. John, the oldest, has autism and developmental delays. Her youngest and only daughter, Angel, has cerebral palsy. For the first three years of her life, Angel was medically fragile, blind, deaf, and unable to move herself. She spent the majority of her young life in hospitals. It was at this time that Draper made the courageous move of taking her children and leaving her home and family to start a new life on her own.
Draper said her decision to leave the FLDS community was not an easy one; it was a long and difficult process.
“With all the changes that were happening, things were becoming untenable,” Draper said, “but I knew that leaving meant giving up all my family, my friends, and all my support system for my special needs children. And even more intimidating, I knew I would be venturing out into a world that had proven to be pretty hostile to people who looked like me.”
Draper said this presented a situation that delayed her decision, one that represented a choice to either “stay and be so stifled I couldn’t breathe, or leave and face antagonism and discrimination and try to get along utterly alone.”
Ultimately, Draper chose the latter.
“And that experience shaped my decision to make a difference for those who came along after me, both in my efforts to help them acclimate and in my efforts to create more cultural understanding and compassion in the broader community.”
Draper took it upon herself to research and pursue intensive therapy for her daughter, who can now see, hear, and walk, and has become a vivacious young woman. After figuring out how to navigate this unfamiliar world for herself, she voluntarily became an advocate for other women and teens embarking on the same journey.
In order to become a more effective advocate, Draper enrolled in the University of Utah’s distance Bachelor of Social Work program. Even with all of her other responsibilities, she graduated with a cumulative 4.0 grade point average. She has also been selected for several awards and honors along the way, including being chosen as one of three finalists by Soroptomist International of the Americas for the 2014 Live your Dream Award in the local chapter and going on to win awards at the regional and national level as well. The scholarship awards helped toward schooling and transportation costs, but Draper said that the best part of winning the award was the validation that she was “doing the right thing and making a difference for other people.”
She was also chosen to be an Ambassador for the President of the University of Utah, David Pershing, for the 2014-15 academic year, which included providing outreach to high school students to increase higher education enrollment.
When she hasn’t been busy with her parenting, studying, and extracurricular activities, Draper has also served in her current position as the president of the board of directors for The Learning Center, which helps provide early intervention for families that have children with special needs. She is very passionate about helping these families. She also volunteers at the Dove Center, which provides confidential shelter and support for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault.
Draper plans to continue her education by earning her master’s degree through the University of Utah’s Master of Public Administration program starting in the fall of 2015. She is also partnering with Cherish Families, which is a Utah nonprofit agency created by people from plural communities to support and empower others from plural communities. This partnership will provide a mentoring program to help women and teens who are leaving the FLDS and similar sects to transition safely. It will also facilitate counseling and other resources and offer cultural competency training for professionals and other agencies. Cherish Families has received some federal funding in the form of grants through the Violence against Women Act but they are still looking for other private funding. Draper hopes to get the programs fully operational by June. Her vision is to empower these individuals instead of exploiting them as they create their new lives.
“It’s all about helping them find out what choices and resources are available, and empowering them to make their own decisions and helping them find their own voice rather than imprinting on them what I feel like they should be doing,” Draper said. “It’s all about making sure that they are equipped to take on their own lives, rather than [me] taking it on for them.”
Draper serves as a great example of resilience to all of those who have the privilege of meeting her and hearing her story. Instead of taking the unfortunate circumstances and events that life handed her and letting them diminish her, she used them as stepping stones to not only improve the lives of herself and her children but also countless others who find themselves in similar situations. She is truly an inspirational woman.
