Sen. Rhoda Perry works on the House version of medical marijuana legislation in May.

The Providence Journal / Connie Grosch Connie Grosch

Here’s an interesting piece of news about Sen. Rhoda Perry, who chairs the Senate panel looking into how Rhode Island deals with abused and neglected children.

Years ago, she was a child welfare social worker in St. Lawrence County, N.Y., while her late husband was teaching college up there.

So, the Providence Democrat says that she has an appreciation for the complexity and the tensions of the challenges.

You’re dealing with families, hospitals, courts, bureaucracies….

“You can,” she says, “sometimes feel frantic.”

Perry, 64, represents the East Side and could be the General Assembly’s most outspoken liberal.

Abortion rights. Medical marijuana. Gay marriage. Physician-assisted suicide. Greater public financing of campaigns. Legislation to combat racial profiling. Budget priorities.

If it bleeds, she pleads.

As she sees her role: “It’s a very great responsibility because it is primarily looking at the needs — the opportunities — to ameliorate the situations of people who have not enough money, not enough food, not enough treatment, whether it be in the substance-abuse area or in the physical health area.”

She says she also tries to “look at ways to help the criminal justice system in getting offenders educated and able to get jobs when they come out of prison or the training school so that they can sustain themselves and their families and don’t have to — literally have to — commit crimes to get money to live on.”

She showers attention on matters of dignity and the fight against discrimination.

Her friend, former Sen. Myrth York, says, “She has a heart that’s open to all.”

York says Perry is exactly whom she claims to be. “There’s just no artifice, there’s no gamesmanship.”

Perry, who grew up in North Carolina and Massachusetts, says her late mother was active in efforts to aid the homeless and hungry, and that her late father’s alcoholism intensified her interest in substance-abuse and mental health issues.

Perry, first elected in 1990, trounced a young David Cicilline when he challenged her in a 1992 primary.

Cicilline won a House seat in 1994 and was elected mayor in 2002.

He can’t seem to believe he was dumb enough to run against Perry. “Many people recognized that she would be impossible to beat — many people other than me,” he laughs.

After that race, the two became strong allies. Cicilline asserts, “She is a person of incredible integrity, one of the most principled people I have ever met.” He calls her “relentless in terms of her commitment to good government and to civil liberties and to reproductive freedom.”

IT’S EASY to pigeonhole Perry and to say she doesn’t understand life or government. But don’t underestimate her sincerity and earnestness.

And, while I don’t hear anyone badmouthing her personally, her stands certainly can be polarizing. She says it is offensive when they are criticized by people who profess to be Christians. “To me, Christianity is supposed to be based on Christ’s views to treat people as your neighbor, to treat people or treat others as you would wish to be treated, and giving people a helping hand and getting them on their own feet so they can deal with their own problems and feed their own children and clothe their own children.”

Interestingly, Perry is not much into formal religion. Three-quarters Irish and one-quarter Protestant, the former Rhoda Emerson was born Catholic, later went to Episcopal services and eventually joined the Congregational Church.

But she only occasionally goes to services. She says she experiences a lot of religion just by being at her vacation farm in Sunapee, N.H. She says, “I can see God in planting and providing food. I can see sanctuary. I can see heaven.”

Her husband, Donald, who died in 1996 after 25 years as a Rhode Island College sociology professor, is buried at the farm.

She was at her 100-acre home away from home when we spoke by phone last week.

She said she and Donald bought the spread 40 years ago for $15,000. The farm features apple trees, plum trees, grapes and hay fields. “We have a beautiful view of Mount Sunapee.”

York calls Perry “a romantic,” a poet at heart, and says the farm speaks to her love of nature.

It all sounded terrific to me, although Perry reported that the house, which got electricity only 10 years ago, still lacks a toilet. “I’m starting to think I want an inside facility,” she said.

Perry has two sons, Samuel, 37, and Alexander, 35.

An alumna of the University of New Hampshire, with a master’s degree from Lesley College, Perry used to run the Thundermist community health center in Woonsocket. These days, she works part-time for the Pawtucket School Department, teaching English as a Second Language to adults whose native tongue is apt to be Spanish, Portuguese or Russian. Most have had some preliminary instruction and are trying to advance.

Classes are entirely in English. Perry says English is the only language she can speak, although she can read French and German. She says the key to her teaching is “speaking clearly, speaking slowly, speaking in simple sentences and simple words and following the advice of those who have taught many years and have made teaching manuals.”

Also important: tone of voice, body language, repetition and goal-setting.

Perry says of her students, “A big issue we all discuss, and they’re very concerned about, is education and what an important role education plays in their life. And adult education is extraordinarily important for them, for role-modeling for their children. And in many cases, it’s their children that help them with their English, and they want their own independence, to be able to speak for themselves and express their ideas and opinions for themselves and not have to go through their children or someone else.”

MY EARLY MEMORIES of Perry are of her being in Democrat York’s political inner circle when York ran for governor against Republican Lincoln Almond in 1994. York lost to him again in 1998 and to Don Carcieri in 2002.

Perry thinks about what might have been had York won but says she doesn’t dwell on it.

“She was a brave and courageous and a pioneer of a woman for having done what she did,” Perry said.

The 2002 election was something of a classic, pitting two well-off candidates against each other. Both came from outside the political establishment, but Perry contends Carcieri had the easier time:

“Myrth York was a scary, independent, strong, bright woman.… Carcieri was a ho hum, very wealthy but experienced CEO of a private corporation. The power structure can relate to that.”

Overall, Perry rates Carcieri a “C.” She says one of the best things he’s done was name Chris Koller state health insurance commissioner.

The worst? Too many for her to talk about, she says.

Perry is in the news now because she chairs the Senate Committee on Health and Human Services. It has begun hearings on the Department of Children, Youth and Families and the caseloads of that troubled agency.

State child advocate Jametta Alston has filed suit alleging that the department has repeatedly placed youngsters in dangerous foster care situations, failed to remove them quickly after the abuse was discovered, and then failed to provide proper counseling and treatment.

Senate CHHS began eying DCYF months ago, and while it is now turning to it again, I would like to see Perry and her committee dramatically accelerate its efforts. I know the part-time legislature largely snoozes through the summer, but this is important. Perry says she’ll be back in Rhode Island this week and work on scheduling the next hearings.

I asked Perry what she thought as Alston brought the suit several weeks ago, when Carcieri said he was unaware of any widespread abuses, and so on.

Perry said, “It’s very disturbing when you’re looking at the most vulnerable set of kids in our state having inadequate care and social workers who are stretched to such a point.”

Indeed, by way of setting a tone, Perry opened a July 25 hearing by saying she was deeply troubled by a letter she received from W. Scott McCrae, a DCYF social caseworker, about unmanageable caseloads wearing down workers and prompting them to leave.

She read aloud several passages. One passage she did not read likened a caseworker to a juggler. “The juggler, over time, may become proficient at keeping 3, 4 or even 5 balls in the air at any one time. But continue to hand them more balls and at what point do all the balls fall? 7? 8? 10? When the juggler cannot keep all the balls in the air, they feel that they are incompetent jugglers and give up juggling. Our children and families are not to be juggled with.”

DCYF director Patricia Martinez told the committee that she expects to have 10 more social workers on board in September and hopes to hire yet another 5.

I doubt many Rhode Islanders pay close attention to such statistics, or to details of the state’s ever-present, menacing budget crunch.

But I’d like to think people care how the state treats children in its care. And taxpayers depend on folks like Carcieri and Martinez and the legislature to provide for the youngsters. I count on Perry and her committee to ride herd on this situation.

M. Charles Bakst is The Journal’s political columnist.

mbakst@projo.com