MonticelloLive

In a news release on their website, the Centers for Youth and Families announce their plans to establish a new center in Monticello. The announcement comes after several months of coordination and negotiation with the city and the Monticello Economic Development Commission.

The Arkansas Health Services Permit Commission has awarded Centers for Youth and Families authorization for a 23-bed psychiatric residential treatment facility to be located in Monticello, Arkansas. Centers is working in collaboration with Delta Counseling Associates and Southeast Arkansas Behavioral Health Care System. This program will serve children and adolescents from ages five to 18 in a ten county region in Southeast Arkansas. The new facility will be built to accommodate up to 24 clients. Centers anticipates opening the program for operation by Spring of 2008. No such program exists in this ten county region. Currently, residents of this area are served in Central Arkansas, Northern Arkansas or out-of-state programs. This program will provide care and treatment to children closer to their home and family.

CYF Chief Executive Officer Doug Stadter responded to MonticelloLive about the upcoming development. “We hope to begin construction at the corner of Jordan and Hicks Drives by this summer. Our anticipated completion date is April 1, 2008. This facility will provide private bedrooms for each of the residents. It will have indoor and outdoor recreational areas as well as classrooms directed by certified special education teachers. A minimum of 30 staff will consist of physicians, nurses, mental health professionals, mental health technicians, dietary and support staff. The annual payroll will be approximately $1,250,000 in salaries and another $400,000 in fringe benefits and payroll taxes. The total annual operating budget will be over $2.8 million.”

Stadter said that clients in the program are in need of an “intensive, structured program designed to help them deal with their illness. These children have tried outpatient services and other less restrictive treatments and have not had success in being able to function in their school and family setting. Our goal is to provide these types of services locally so families can remain actively involved in their child’s treatment and care. Today, without such a facility in this region, children must be placed in programs in Little Rock, NW Arkansas, or out of state. This does not allow for much family involvement.”

Centers for Youth and Families began in 1884 as the Children’s Aid Society and is the oldest continuously operating not-for-profit in Arkansas. Monticello is already home to two denominational ministry agencies for children: Vera Lloyd Presbyterian Home and the Arkansas Baptist Home for Children.

The final details of the process involve the purchase of the site. The MEDC has made a good faith promise to CYF to provide the site at no charge. Currently the land is owned by the county, and according to minutes from their March board meeting, members of the MEDC will be raising the needed money for the site to meet the acquisition price of approximately $50,000, after the timber is harvested from the site. The board approved an MEDC contribution of up to $25,000 to make good on the promise made. Additional monies are being raised by Twenty for the Future, private donors and other entities.