Helping Alexis Barker Wilsonville by asking community for help

Hey, we are letting all of our neighbors and friends know the current situation with Alexis so that we can get her the best help possible:

Hi everyone.

I wanted to share an update regarding Alexis, so that me and Leland can get the most help possible from everyone in order to help Alexis. Inza Middle School Counselor Carly McIsaac has tried working with Alexis to help her, and she then had to involve the Middle Schools Social Worker Brittany Bucholz as well. In the end, they both recommended that we get Alexis extensive and intensive therapy via Charlie Health. We agreed. Carly and Brittany sent in a referral to Charlie Health. Alexis has been getting extensive therapy via Charlie Health. She has 9 hours of intensive group therapy for teenagers every week, plus at least 1 hour of individual therapy and at least 1 hour of family group therapy.

To help with the therapy, we also want to make sure that we are creating a safe environment for Alexis outside of the house, school and the Charlie Health sessions. One of the repeating systematic themes that has come up, and confirmed by several people including Wesley, is the repeated lies Alexis has been telling her friends and property/animal abuse. We want to try and address that by being open with everyone, so that Alexis has fewer channels to continue undoing what Carly/Brittany and now Charlie Health is trying to do to help us: I came forward last year to my mom (for abusing me throughout my childhood) and to my brother (for raping me several times starting when I was 11). They both ignored and dismissed feelings as being not that important. In addition to that, once I started dating Leland earlier this year, my Mom tried gaslighting me and the kids against Leland, including spewing racist stuff about Leland. With the help of multiple therapists, this year in April I put up boundaries and cut both my Mom and my brother off. In response, my mom and brother went on what appears to be a vindictive and extremely toxic behavior of trying to get both of my kids (Alexis and Wesley) to hate me and my partner, by downplaying the abuse I experienced from them by saying it was not-a-big-deal. While Wesley clearly realized that what my mom/brother did was wrong and how they were behaving was toxic, Alexis unfortunately did not. I posted about this online to open up and not hide about this anymore: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/EBEuvB4Y17Nym6Lg/ Since then, Alexis has been having a ton of issues with me, Wesley and Leland: She lied constantly to my face directly that she was not meeting her grandmother, after I told her that she was not allowed to. I caught her in this lie weeks later. She has consistently gotten her brother in trouble or ridiculed in front of her dad solely for the reason that Wesley does not talk negatively about me and Leland in front of their dad. We have had several unhealthy incidents happen around the house, which all point to Alexis: Leland’s laptop screen was broken by someone randomly in the middle of the night, Leland’s prescriptions (in our bedroom) ended up being photographed on a phone camera and the photos ended up being posted online anonymously while mentioning his private medication info (we found those photos on her phone last week), Alexis’s phone restrictions being removed and my mother’s phone number reappearing on Alexis’s contact list after I had removed it myself, etc. Alexis snapped and yelled at Wesley for having things that Alexis hadn’t wanted previously (I let him have stuff that Alexis had intended to throw away) and snatching those things from his hand, which worried Wesley. After Wesley brought it up to us, Alexis told Wesley that if he tells us anything like that again, that Alexis would tell their dad. She has spread lies about Leland to her friends, telling them that the situations where she was grounded or reprimanded by me was actually because of Leland. Alexis has continued to disrespect me in front of others over even the smallest of things (like me telling her to not use her phone at the dinner table). The four most worrying things, that we are trying to address via therapy and outside intervention, have been that: Alexis has never felt sorry and not shown any emotions after finding out what happened to me. She on the contrary has defended my mom. Alexis has told her friends things which resulted in child protective services to show up at our house. Nothing resulted from that, and Alexis has continued lying about doing anything to make that happen other than (paraphrasing): “Oh, maybe one of my friend’s parents may have called because of what I said”. Alexis ran away to her dad’s recently with the help of one of her friends. I had to get a court order and had to get Linn County Sheriff’s to get Alexis back from her dad. After going through her phone, we found that she had planned this with one of her friends. While Alexis had run away, Wesley told me that Alexis had been verbally abusive to Leland’s dog (Professor) and physically rough with Professor for a while. Wesley broke down crying saying that the way Alexis would yell and angrily tug Professor (while dog walking) actually made Wesley be afraid of Alexis and made him feel sad that Professor was being treated like that. Wesley being afraid of Alexis because of how she would yell at and yank Professor has gotten us even more worried. We are trying super hard to make sure Wesley feels safe in this house with Alexis around. Throughout this, me, Leland and Wesley have been trying our best to live with Alexis while also being kind to her.

There is a police report with the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office regarding the broken laptop (mentioning that we strongly suspect Alexis did it), and a documented animal abuse report with both Clackamas Animal Services and Oregon Humane Society (again, mentioning that we know Alexis abused Professor). We have also advised some of our neighbors and friends to be careful leaving their children or animals alone with Alexis.

Some therapists have told us that Alexis may be best helped, because of Alexis’s lack of remorse or any accountability, by continuing to escalate anything Alexis does that harms or endangers property or animal or human to law enforcement so that she can potentially get help via juvenile delinquency if absolutely necessary. We are however trying our best to avoid that outcome and hope that therapy can help all of us.

Thank you for reading this, and sorry for the long message.

Jenni