DATE: Tuesday, November 25, 1997            TAG: 9711250586

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY TOM HOLDEN, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                    LENGTH:  143 lines

NEW HURDLE FOR MENTAL HEALTH CONSOLIDATION: MIXING CLIENTS

When the Community Services Board announced plans to consolidate services in one location, it figured the project would help in several ways. It could stop paying rent, cut transportation costs, have room to expand and allow architects to custom fit a new building to the needs of the board's many customers.

While they were compelling arguments, they ignored an important worry that is finding voice during a series of community forums in the city. Many parents of mentally ill or mentally retarded children do not want their adult children mingling with drug addicts on a central campus-like setting.

``That's a very deep concern with everyone,'' said Rod Amelotte, a Pembroke area resident whose 30-year-old daughter Suzette is hyperactive, epileptic and retarded. ``What parents worry about is mixing the physically and mentally handicapped with alcoholics, dope addicts and the derelicts. They didn't want to mix those classes together.''

The worry, he said, is based largely on what could happen should an unsavory adult with drug problems take advantage of another adult with the mental capacity of a 2-year-old. None interviewed could cite an example of where such a problem occurred, but parents who care for mentally impaired children are fiercely protective of them.

``The handicapped, especially the mentally handicapped, are very vulnerable to the elements that are out on the streets today,'' he said. ``We're scared that they would become fair game for other persons.''

Clyde Vandivort, program supervisor for the board's Recovery Center Detox Facility, which helps drug and alcohol dependent people break free of dependencies, is sympathetic to the worry.

``I can imagine that parents and families are very concerned,'' Vandivort said. ``I don't know what they're feeling since I'm not in their situation. I can't discount those feelings at all, and certainly I don't want anything to happen that could cause anyone harm.

``We don't have much of a problem with violence here,'' he added. ``We just don't.''

Charles A. Hall, the executive director of the Hampton-Newport News Community Services Board, said he saw no clinical reason why clients with various disabilities could not be mixed. The more important consideration, he said, is what abilities the person has.

``People who are in a substance abuse program and who are actively participating are very well supervised and, therefore, a safe population,'' Hall said. ``I would be more concerned about placing people who are mentally retarded in a setting where there is well documented criminal activity, such as drug dealing, taking place.

``If you are getting supervision, you are more than likely to be among the safest environments in the community.''

Hall, who is married to Kathryn B. Hall, director of the comprehensive substance abuse program for the Virginia Beach board, said the Peninsula board has several instances of mixing people with different disabilities that have worked well.

``We look at what the capabilities of the consumer are rather than what their handicapping condition is. We attempt to blend populations based on their competencies.''

The board's $19 million annual budget provides services to people with mental illness, such as schizophrenia and bi-polar disorders; mental retardation; and substance abuse problems, such as alcoholism and drug addiction.

The programs take a variety of forms, from the clubhouse atmosphere of Beach House, where the mentally ill receive guidance in everyday living skills, to SkillQuest, a unique program that provides stimulation and care to the mentally retarded.

The board also operates a number of group homes where the mentally disabled can live in a homelike setting overseen by social workers. About 8,900 people each year receive help under all board programs.

The worry of different people with unique and challenging disabilities mingling in one campus setting is but the latest problem to emerge from an ambitious plan to consolidate board operations to one site.

Last December, the Community Services Board convinced the City Council to appropriate $12 million to finance the purchase of three buildings on Bonney Road, renovate two and raze one of them, and move the board's various operations into the newly remodeled buildings. One of them was a former Days Inn; the other was an Unclaimed Freight Co. store.

The plan has since stalled after it was shown that the former executive director provided the City Council with inaccurate projections on the project's cost. The city, however, owns the land and buildings.

The plan is now expected to cost $17.2 million. To help justify its decision, the board is awaiting a financial review that will be presented to the City Council to explain the added costs.

In the meantime, the board held six community forums last week so that clients and parents of people who use mental health, mental retardation and substance abuse services could offer opinions on how to improve services and set priorities in the $19 million board budget.

Terry Jenkins, the board's acting executive director, said the comments will be collected and, following one last public meeting Dec. 2, will be presented to the full board.

Rod Amelotte said he is sympathetic to the board's desire to consolidate services and cut its annual rent bill at the Pembroke Office Park from its current $522,000 a year. But any talk about how nice it would be for the board to save money only brings up another topic voiced at the forums: access to services.

Most of the board's programs have waiting lists. At Beach House, it's 42 people long. There are 71 on the transitional employment waiting list and 131 on the mental retardation services list. Delays to see a psychiatrist are now a month long, an impossibly long time for people whose children are manic depressive and bordering on loss of control.

Many within the disabled community believe the board's plans to consolidate services are being financed, in part, by a reduction in services. They cite the board's argument that part of the added cost of its relocation project will be paid for through the use of ``contingency funds,'' or money left over from the fiscal year.

This is money, many have argued, that should be spent on services. A case in point is Amelotte's daughter, Suzette. She has received care and training from board programs that have brought her to the edge of self sufficiency as an adult, her father said.

``My greatest concern is to get her mainstreamed,'' he said. ``She's all set. She's mentally and physically capable of surviving in a residential setting. She's capable of living in a supervised setting.

``But there's not enough money in the program,'' he said. ``She's been on a waiting list since 1995.''

At Beach House, where Keith Johnson is the director, the worry is how the public will perceive clients if they are shuttled off to a campus on Bonney Road. Johnson, who founded the program, said one of its unique qualities is its setting.

Located on Magic Hollow Drive in a small office building, Beach House is neighbor to everything from a United Way office to a construction company and a convenience store. There, Johnson said, clients can have a greater sense of independence and not feel sequestered from the rest of the community.

Johnson worries that putting Beach House clients on the same lot with SkillQuest clients and still others suffering from substance abuse problems will stigmatize them in the public's mind.

``They'll drive by the Bonney Road site and say, `Oh, that's where all the crazies are.' ''

Underscoring all of these concerns is the issue of whether the board's senior staff and its members had sought outside input on the wisdom of consolidating services.

Johnson, for example, said he learned of the plans to purchase the Bonney Road property only days before the council approved the plan.

While the city now owns that property, Johnson and others can only hope it's not too late to convince city officials to abandon the land's intended use. ILLUSTRATION: Photo

GARY C. KNAPP

Mitch Broudy, chairman of the Mental Health Committee of the

Community Services Board, listens to views on unifying mental health

services. KEYWORDS: DISABILITIES VIRGINIA BEACH COMMUNITY

SERVICES BOARD

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