Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 5, 1995 TAG: 9503070007
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-18 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: STEPHEN FOSTER STAFF WRITER PILOT
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
One girl stuffs enough beef, sour cream and toppings into the tortilla to make a lunch that could feed her - and two of the other teen-agers. The other boys and girls build their own versions of the Mexican meal; the adults join in.
As they eat, the two groups talk mostly among themselves, but there is some across-the-table and generation-gap banter. Before lunch is over, a couple of the teens ask to go outside, where they lie in the parking lot, sunning themselves on a warm February day.
The children look like average teen-agers. A crew cut here; a nose pierced there. Short, tall, squat, slim. Some with smiles; some pensive.
But these are teen-agers at the Tekoa Residential Treatment Facility, a Floyd County group home for abused and troubled youth from the New River Valley. Nine children are here now; the facility can house up to 16, half boys and half girls.
Some may not have parents. Some may have been adopted, and then been told they were unwanted. They may have had scrapes with the law. Normal home life is not something they know; that's why they're here.
Inside these teen-agers is hurt, confusion and anger.
Still, "I've never met a child that I thought was bad, quote-unquote," said Susan Duncan, who worked as a family counselor for 20 years before becoming co-director of Tekoa. Inside each of these children, too, she said, is a child looking for a little respect, love and a way to feel good about himself.
"The main thing that we focus on is self-esteem," Duncan said. "From their rooms to their schoolwork to their ability to get along."
Though the problems may seem great, she points to the little victories, the "thank you" or "I'm sorry" spoken by a child who before might have only sputtered four-letter words and frustrated curses. She talks about the motivation within the 19-person staff of counselors, teachers and assistants at the facility, designed to treat children temporarily until they can be returned to a home life.
"There's an old quote, 'It takes a village to raise a child,'" Duncan said. "I really believe that. I hope I stay idealistic."
For some in the Floyd County community near Possum Hollow, an area just across the Montgomery County line made up of mountains and troughs connected by narrow winding roads, "idealism" gives way to uncertainties and worry.
In the year leading up to the home's opening on Nov. 10, plenty of residents voiced their displeasure over the prospect of a treatment facility for troubled youths being built in their back yard. Among their concerns: What kind of children would be treated there? What security would be provided? What provisions would be made for emergency crews to reach the home if roads were covered in ice and snow?
More than 300 signed a petition opposing the home, but Floyd County's lack of zoning laws effectively prevented them from stopping the project.
While many of Tekoa's neighbors say they've experienced no problems with the facility, some still have their concerns.
"There's the potential" for trouble, said Mike Lester, who lives just around the bend from Tekoa on Virginia 705. He has no complaints with the building per se - "it's not an eyesore" - but he and others aren't sure what kind of kids are being housed there. He's heard about a couple of children who walked off the grounds and later knocked on neighbors' doors looking for rides. At least one of them, when told "no," he heard, "got kind of upset."
"They can pretty much leave whenever they want to," Lester said.
Duncan admits that at least two children have walked off. One made it to the end of the driveway; the other was heading for home in Christiansburg down Virginia 615. He was gone for about 10 minutes before staff retrieved him.
Clay Vest, who lives up from the home on Virginia 615 heading toward Pilot, answered the door the night one of the boys left the facility.
"He was wanting a ride to the Pilot Mountain grocery store," Vest said. He told the boy that he should ask the people at Tekoa to give him a ride, then asked him if he was living up there. The boy, Vest said, lied to him, telling him he was renting a house owned by Tekoa that sits across the road from the facility.
"He was visibly upset," when Vest told him he wouldn't give him a ride. After about five minutes the boy left and Vest called the Sheriff's Office.
Of his personal feelings on the home, Vest, whose wife helped circulate a petition before Tekoa was built, asking the county's Board of Supervisors to hold public hearings, said, "I'll keep mine to myself at this point."
Duncan has told the teen-agers that there are neighbors both fearful and angry that they're nearby. She's gone so far to tell them that if they walk onto someone's property there's a chance they could be shot.
"What they think about that is that these people have no clue," she said.
It's not uncommon for facilities like Tekoa to have children walk off from time to time, said Doris Jenkins, manager of central licensing with with the Department of Social Services.
"That happens in these facilities," Jenkins said. "These kids do have problems; they want to run away from those problems.
"The facility acted responsibly."
The Department of Social Services granted Tekoa a six-month conditional license, subject to review by May. "So far it appears that they're doing a very good job," Jenkins said.
Duncan refused to allow the children to be interviewed, but according to Tekoa's model statement, the facility can treat children who are runaways, truants, substance abusers, abandoned, abused depressed, socially dysfunctional or sexually active. They can't be suicidal, psychotic or drug abusers so bad off that they need to be in a detoxification center.
All must be 12-17 years old, and can come from the New River Valley, as well as Galax and Wythe, Carroll and Grayson counties. The children can be referred by therapists or families, the Department of Social Services, school divisions or the court.
Some of the children may have faced juvenile charges involving drugs, shoplifting or fighting, but both Duncan and Jenkins said none were "serious offenders." Both were hesitant to discuss specifics because of the need to keep the teen-agers' identities confidential.
No children will be housed at the Tekoa facility if they've committed crimes that would be considered felonies if were they older, Jenkins said. "There are other facilities that are licensed to take that kind of child."
Tekoa is funded by taxpayer dollars, allowed under the Comprehensive Services Act for At-Risk Youth and Families. It costs up to $165 a day to house, teach, counsel and feed a child, "everything from toothpaste to psychotherapy," Duncan said. A $750,000 operating budget is funded through these fees, which are paid for by a mixture of funds from the state and the child's home county.
Built on a 30-acre site by VMH, a nonprofit Christiansburg-based housing corporation, it cost more than $500,000 to build, and was financed partly by a $350,000 loan from the state Department of Housing and Community Development. Donations of furniture, a generator and some construction costs came to more than $100,000, according to VMH, formerly known as Virginia Mountain Housing.
Duncan worries that the price tag for treating a child may seem high; she qualifies it with comparisons to other treatment and facilities' costs.
She cites the benefits of treating children as close to possible to their homes, where before they may have been sent to farther away facilities that would have made it difficult for them to interact with family.
And it seems obvious, to hear Duncan talk and watch her expression change, that she believes no amount of money would be too much to help a child in need. "The children haven't committed an offense; they're victims," she said.
Helping them work out their problems, she and co-director Robert Sisk said, means respecting them, listening and being patient. It also means establishing rewards and penalties, applying discipline and stick-to-it-tiveness, and understanding the children's backgrounds.
A schedule is posted, noting school hours, individual counseling times, recreation and meal times. The children take field trips, and on weekends go camping, canoeing, hiking or the like. Often though, the nature of the children's problems doesn't always conform to schedules.
Duncan recalls catching an earful of swearing from one child who stormed off to her room, then finally began talking after Duncan refused to leave until she opened up. Sisk might find himself answering a phone call from a child at school - (children who are Floyd County residents can still attend county schools) - who may have had something not go her way. Arguments happen. There are times when a child thinks he must leave.
"You asked me what's typical," of a day, Sisk said. "Nothing's typical."
One looks around the facility, set upon a knoll up from Virginia 605 against a backdrop of woods and mountains, and sees hints of a home. "The reason this is made like a house instead of an institution is to normalize," Duncan said. Bedrooms are located in each wing, with a dining room in the center. Posters and artwork are scattered about. A stuffed animal sits by the fireplace.
But the parking lot, the offices, the stocked kitchen, counseling sessions, the staff and, yes, the children, make it obvious that there is work going on here - and that these children are here because they've been sent here. Duncan said an average stay for a child will be about seven months, but it could be as long as 18. There are problems to be solved.
Ultimately, the goal is to return children to their families and to create a framework where the two can communicate, to resolve the conflicts that tear at them and teach them how to help themselves if need be.
The Tekoa home tries to give and teach them respect, while serving as an alternative to a detention home or a hospital.
Said Sisk: "This isn't normal life, but we want it to be as much as it can."
by CNB