In 1989, Kim Donica took a social work position in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. As a small part of her job, Donica was asked if she would work with families whose babies had contracted HIV from their mothers.
“When I had this opportunity, I knew working with these families was what I wanted to do,” says Donica, now program director of Project ARK (AIDS/HIV Resources and Knowledge) and research administrator in pediatric infectious diseases.
Now a national policy maker and the key figure in the field of HIV services for women and children in St. Louis, colleagues say Donica brings patience and a level head to her emotionally challenging work.
“Many local families literally owe her their lives,” says Lynn Cooper, who has worked with Donica for 15 years as president of Doorways, a local interfaith AIDS residence program. “She’s gotten them out of bad situations and connected them with lifesaving services, case management and resource referral.”
When Donica started working with families with HIV, she knew firsthand what an HIV diagnosis meant for a family and the struggles it would face: Her brother-in-law and two other family members had already been diagnosed with the disease.
Working with Greg Storch, M.D., professor of pediatrics, and Kathleen McGann, M.D., associate professor of pediatrics, Donica helped access services for families with the disease, such as respite, daycare and home-health services.
“Kim is an outstanding people person,” Storch says. “She understands human behavior very well and has great insight into people’s needs.
“I have also seen her do a great job of developing the skills of personnel at Project ARK.”
Following a spike in the number of mother-to-child transmissions, in 1995 Donica, Storch and McGann wrote the grant to establish Project ARK, which would provide health-care and support services for children with HIV. The program was established through the School of Medicine’s Department of Pediatrics with a $300,000 budget.
Today, with a budget of $2 million, the organization provides services to almost 600 people and is the only local agency specifically dedicated to serve children, adolescents and women living with HIV.
Storch says Donica has been critical in overseeing the growth of Project ARK.
“I consider her an organizational genius,” he says. “She’s very good at understanding how organizations work, fitting the right people into the organization and making sure they’re successful.
“She also is a very creative problem-solver.”
When Donica first began helping families with HIV, babies born to mothers with the disease were being infected before, during or after birth at an alarming rate. But since 1994, when women with HIV started taking the drug AZT during pregnancy, the transmission rate has plummeted.
Seeing fewer mother-to-child HIV transmissions and longer life expectancies in children with HIV has been very rewarding for Donica.
“When I first started working in this area, the life expectancy for children with this disease was 3-to-5 years old,” she says. “Now, many are living through adolescence and into young adulthood. Many of these kids have complicated lives, but for the most part enjoy a good quality of life. They are very brave and a true inspiration.”
More children today — about 70 percent of the families that Project ARK works with — tell school administrators about their disease.
Under Donica’s guidance, Project ARK developed a plan of action that families can use when they make this disclosure.
One of the hardest parts of Donica’s job, she says, is helping children who have been orphaned by the disease.
The children and families helped by Project ARK often view the staff as an extended family.
This feeling is fostered by Camp Hope, an annual camp Project ARK hosts for children with HIV and their families at Trout Lodge in Potosi, Mo.
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Kim Donica Position: Program director of Project ARK and research administrator in pediatric infectious diseases Family: Husband, Kevin; children, Kirsten, 19; Evan, 17; and Aaron, 14 Hobbies: Wine-tasting and playing card games such as spades and Shanghai. “At family gatherings, we have fiercely competitive card tournaments,” Donica says. |
Not only do the families connect with the staff and provide great support to each other — away from the stigma and rejection they may face at home — but they also share advice about how to get family members to take their medications on a regular basis.
“It’s immeasurable what Camp Hope means to these families,” Donica says.
Donica grew up the middle child in a close-knit family in Puxico, Mo., a town of fewer than 1,000 people, located between Poplar Bluff and Cape Girardeau.
But people in little Puxico had big dreams, Donica says: “It seemed the entire town had a belief that you could do anything or be anything.”
Some of Donika’s classmates became physicians, CEOs of companies and political leaders.
The late Chris Sifford became a top aide for former Missouri Gov. Mel Carnahan; and Roy Temple served as chief of staff for U.S. Sen. Jean Carnahan.
Donica’s father farmed and taught social studies at Puxico Middle School, but he was a social worker by his actions. He was always helping elderly neighbors and others in need.
Donica majored in social work at Southeast Missouri State University. When she graduated, she received a full scholarship for a master’s degree at the George Warren Brown School of Social Work. The scholarship was given to a social worker who promised to practice in a rural area after graduating.
As part of her master’s degree, she completed a practicum with the Ferguson Medical Group and the Missouri Delta Community Hospital, not far from Puxico.
Donica was that hospital’s first social worker and provided both mental-health and medical social-work services. She distinctly remembers the case of an anorexic young girl whom she referred to the local health-care facility and saw recover.
After she earned a master’s degree, Donica was hired by the Ferguson Medical Group for a short while and then joined the Bootheel Mental Health Center, where she worked for five years.
In 1987, Donica’s 1-year-old daughter, Kirsten, was diagnosed as profoundly hearing impaired at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. Donica and her husband, Kevin, decided to move to St. Louis to enroll her in the St. Joseph Institute for the Deaf.
Kirsten’s younger brother, Aaron, also is profoundly hearing impaired. Both children received cochlear implants from the Washington University Hearing Rehabilitation and Cochlear Implant Program and now attend the hearing-impaired program at Brentwood High School.
The couple’s other son, Evan, attends Kirkwood High School.
She and her husband spend much of their free time at their children’s school activities, and they also enjoy traveling and taking dance and wine-tasting classes.
Whether it’s helping a family deal with a diagnosis of HIV or facing some of the challenges in her own life, Donica maintains a positive outlook.
“I believe I have been very fortunate,” she says.
She’s also inspired by the Project ARK staff and the physicians she works with every day.
“From the start, we believed we could develop a comprehensive program to help address the many needs these families have, and we did,” she says proudly.