Establishment and Growth of a Mental Health Center

• NCJ Number: 170862
• Journal: Residential Treatment for Children and Youth Volume: 15 Issue: 4 Dated: (1998) Pages: 11-23
• Author(s): D Pazaratz
• Date Published: 1998
• Length: 13 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Program/Project Description
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: DCC.

Annotation

This paper describes the evolution of a Canadian drug-crisis intervention agency from a community outreach program into a group home and then a children's mental health center known as Frontenac Youth Services.

Abstract

The Oshawa-Whitby Crisis Intervention Centre, as a residential treatment program established to treat adolescent drug users, not only floundered in its mandate, but eventually failed. When community support wavered with shifting community attitudes, the board of directors attempted to ensure the program's continuation by making the center part of the established social service network. Adolescent psychiatric patients from Oshawa General and Whitby Psychiatric Hospitals were admitted for treatment. The center also failed in this effort because the program had difficulty with other agencies' demand for program accountability. The center never followed a recognized or standardized treatment approach. The first director should have recruited and attempted to combine professionals to develop the staff as paraprofessionals. The board falsely concluded that the staff and program had been successful at working with drug-experimenting youth, and, therefore, could handle any adolescent. When the center operated as a drug crisis and rehabilitative residence, the director should have ensured that the staff were mature and sufficiently sensitive to realize that the program had been established because drug use and community attitudes were highly charged issues. The director and staff had difficulty in showing that they understood and were attempting to meet the community's demand for accountability. Ultimately, the Oshawa-Whitby Crisis Centre survived as a children's mental health center connected to a county four-phase system with more administrative strength. The author draws implications of the experience of the center for group home operators. 23 references