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Utah's polygamy-focused Safety Net committee has a new clinical director.
Therapist Shelli Mecham will step into the role filled by Pat Merkley since the founding of the group by the Utah attorney general in 2003.
"I've learned a lot of very hopeful things that have dispelled myths about polygamy," Mecham said Thursday. "As the general population here gets a more fair and balanced understanding of what polygamy is, I think it will help people in the communities too."
She has been a therapist at the nonprofit Family Support Center for nearly two years and worked with some clients from polygamous groups.
Prior to that, Mecham did other work, including running her own home-staging and design business. She holds a bachelor's degree in child and family development and a master's degree in social work. Mecham was born in California but grew up in Utah, graduating from Olympus High School.
The committee consists of polygamists, nonprofit workers and state employees and aims to ensure polygamists have access to education, justice and other services. Though bigamy is a felony, Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff focuses instead on crimes like child abuse and underage marriage.
The committee holds monthly meetings, publishes a primer about the state's various sects and hosts trainings about polygamous groups. Mecham said she's interested in helping youth from polygamous communities using some of the concepts central to anti-bullying campaigns.
She'll focus primarily on giving therapy to people with connections to fundamentalist Mormonism, both former and current.
Asked how the committee should help deal with the crisis in the Warren Jeffs-led Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, including dozens of excommunications and stifling rules for behavior, Mecham said she's "pondering" the complex question of what the committee can and should do.
Mecham's part-time position is part of a two-person management team for the committee, shared with part-time administrative director Michael Leetham.
"Shelli has a very even temperament and she has a tremendous clinical background in terms of her education and in terms of the experience she has been able to glean," said Bonnie Peters, executive director of the Family Support Center, which runs the Safety Net as one of its programs.
Mecham was chosen for the approximately $25,000-a-year position from a pool of 10 applicants by a panel of five to eight Safety Net members, Leetham said.
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