Evansville center offers psychiatric care for children

EVANSVILLE, Ind. (AP) - Nestled discretely behind a tire shop on Morgan Avenue sits the only hospital in Indiana that treats children with severe psychological problems.

The cluster of small, 1960s-era buildings house children from around the state for months at a time. There, mental health professionals provide intense, around-the-clock therapy aimed at helping the kids cope with their mental disorders.

"It is a last resort to get these kids stabilized and able to live a long life," said Brett Niemeier, a judge for Vanderburgh County's juvenile court.

The Evansville Psychiatric Children's Center opened 50 years ago this month. It's treated more than 1,300 children through decades of changing attitudes toward mental health care, and multiple attempts by state lawmakers to have it closed.

To protect the children's privacy, the center is normally off limits to the public. But to celebrate its 50th anniversary this October, staff opened the center's doors for tours and informational presentations.

"We want people to see what we do here," said Lottie Cook, the superintendent.

She strolled through the center's halls Oct. 19 pointing out classrooms, play rooms and dorms.

Children come here as a last resort, she said. Each one has a major psychiatric diagnosis, a referral from a state mental health center, and a history threatening or harming others.

The facility treats 30 to 50 children a year, ages five to 13.

"They must have tried and been unsuccessful treating the child in a less restrictive environment," Cook said. She held up a ring of keys to the facility. "This is a locked facility. This is the most restrictive environment we have."

The therapy children experience is intense, she said.

More than half the kids the center treats are there because they've experienced extreme trauma, often physical or sexual abuse.

"The kids are so traumatized, the wiring in their head is off," Cook said. "They don't know how to respond appropriately to situations. Our job is to re-wire their brain and show them that adults can be safe and consistent."

The center does that with a lot of therapy.

There's talk therapy, art therapy, behavior therapy, recreational therapy. Several rooms in the facility are filled with toys and games that therapists can use to work with the children. One houses a sand pit, surrounded by shelves of small toys that the kids can use to create play scenes.

Cook remembers one little girl who came to the center after her father was imprisoned for molesting his step daughter. Day after day the girl went to the sand pit and staged a strange scene.

She dug out a hole in the middle of the sand and placed a turtle at the center. She placed other turtles in a circle around the first turtle. Far away, at the edge of the sand pit, she placed a woman with her back to the circle.

"She told me that the turtle in the middle was a mean turtle, and the other turtles were circled up to protect each other from the mean one," Cook said. The woman at the edge of the sandbox didn't know what was happening.

Cook and the girl returned to the sand pit often during her stay. Over time, the circle of turtles began to spread, and the woman at the edge of the box moved closer to the center.

"Kids normal way of processing life is through play," Cook said.

Besides regular visits with therapists, the kids attend school at the center with teachers who are specially trained in trauma care. The staff that cares for the children during down times are also trained to role model appropriate relationships and social interaction.

It's not easy.

Physical outbursts are common, and each person employed at the center is trained to restrain the children when they become violent.

"We stopped using mechanical restraints years ago," Cook said. "We now do physical holds. That way, there is someone who stays with the child the whole time, helping them to breathe and talking with them."

Each outburst is a learning opportunity, Cook said. And little by little the children learn to control their emotions.

"It's consistent and intense every day," Cook said.

The children stay about five months. Often, they leave with the skills to function in life, Cook said.

If they don't, there are few other options.

Evansville's center is the only psychiatric center for children in the state.

When Indiana built the Evansville center in 1966 it was meant to be the first of five such facilities scattered across the state.

But no others were built.

Since it opened, the center has endured multiple attempts by state legislators to close the facility.

"If you look through our history, we're often battling someone who thinks they can save money by closing us down," Cook said.

The most recent threat came during a state budget crisis in 2009 and 2010.

To stop the state leaders from closing the center, Senator Vaneta Becker proposed forming a committee to review the need for such a facility.

The committee concluded that there was an overwhelming need for a psychiatric center for children - and that rather than shutting it down, the state should consider an expansion.

"This place is for young children who have the most severe psychological problems," said Niemeier, who served on the committee as a juvenile court judge. "That population, while small, it's not going away. And there is no private alternative for these kids. There is no private facility you can send a child to."

The state has discussed the possibility of building the center a new facility and expanding its services in the near future, Cook said. But no plans are yet made.

Their current facility, built on a 37-acre plot off Morgan Avenue, has had few upgrades since it opened.

"This is an old building," Cook said, as she walked the grounds. "It's probably not the best set up for what's going on with treatments now changed. But we make do."

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Source: Evansville Courier and Press, http://bit.ly/2fwIYtw

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Information from: Evansville Courier & Press, http://www.courierpress.com