Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Center closing due to employee problems

A total of 37 jobs will be lost when the Therapeutic Family Service Center closes in Gurdon.

The center will be closing, said TFSC Administrator Birkes Williams, because it can't get the workers it needs. Williams, though, gave no specific date for the Center's closing.

In answering questions brought up at a recent meeting of the Gurdon City Council, Williams said the center is a combination therapeutic center and licensed group home, along with being a stand-alone facility accepting difficult children from the Arkansas Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) and the Arkansas Department of Youth Services (DYS).

However, Williams said, no violent children are accepted at the TFSC, though the young people there do have some problems and are from broken homes.

Williams said the Center is licensed to house 24 children, but at no time has it ever had this many clients, nor was there any intention of accommodating a full house. Currently, there are three children living at the center full-time.

"Some of these children have been abused," Williams said, "neglected, abandoned and have attachment issues. Some have had Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). We're not set up to handle violent children, but these do have problems coming from dysfunctional families. If we got one we felt we couldn't handle, they were discharged or sent elsewhere.

"We have nothing to hide."

According to Williams, if one of the TFSC clients broke the law, the Center filed a petition or contacted the court. If the problem was serious enough, the offender was sent to DYS or a juvenile detention center.

Williams was disappointed with statements made at the city council meeting. He said no one ever bothered to come by or check to see what was going on at the Center.

"The mayor was contacted months ago by David Miller and Mike McKenzie," Williams said, "to talk. He would have had to sign a confidentiality statement, but he didn't respond." Miller and McKenzie are two of the Center's owners.

"We are not closing because of the community," Williams continued, "but because we care about these children and felt we couldn't recruit the level of staff. The request to close was an administrative decision by us, not from pressure by the community."

Williams received a letter from Doyle Herndon, director of the DYS concerning the closing. The letter stated the DYS was happy with the Center's services.

Williams admitted there were some problems and some of the clients left the Center without permission. Some did break windows, he said, and the result was the Center installed security devices, including video monitors to help keep watch on the children.

Those who left without permission were considered to be AWOL. In such instances, said Regina Hopson, with the Center, the authorities were notified, even if the children told someone where they were going. Each and every such incident was documented, and faxed to the DYS and DHS, she added.

In-service training was held after the incident. Miller said all of the Center's in-service training was done at City Hall.

Along with the in-service training, Hopson said, the staff was trained in crisis prevention and first aid.

According to Williams, the children at the Center had a stigma attached because they were housed at TFSC and came from dysfunctional homes. "For some of these children," he said, "this is the only home they've ever known."

Williams said the lowest paying job at the Center was $7 an hour, and it is a part-time position. Overall, the Center's annual payroll was about $780,000.

Miller said the Center spent an average of $2,000 a month at Sexton Foods in Gurdon, and actually refused tax exempt status, opting to pay tax on its purchases to help the community. "We bought as much locally as we could. We chose to keep the money local."

When an employee was hired, Williams said, the Center did a criminal background check on them, as well as a child maltreatment background check for the protection of the children and the Center. The Center, he added, received the same kind of accreditation hospitals must have to operate.

Additionally, Hopson said, five of the Center's clients had been attending Gurdon Public Schools.

According to Williams, when a child came to the Center a 10-day evaluation was done to see if he or she could fit in the mainstream population of the school, or if they needed to be in the Alternative Learning Environment-2 program. The first year the Center was in Gurdon, he added, a teacher was furnished by the district. The ALE-2 program works with children who have problems in mainstream education.

However, Williams said, another teacher "had marvelous control and relationship skills and had fewer problems with the children." This teacher ended up working with the students until they actually began attending school.

The youth at the Center, Williams said, range in age from 12-17.

"We have no problem with the schools or Superintendent Bobby Smithson,"Williams said.

The TFSC provides services in Malvern, Fordyce, Hot Springs, Arkadelphia and Prescott, and, Williams said, plans to expand its services in Prescott.

"We may still consider doing something like this again elsewhere," he said. "We want the community to support us and be accepted. It would be good for everyone involved."

The Therapeutic Family Services Center has been in operation about two-and-a-half years in Gurdon, working out of the former nursing home.