The Buckingham Herald Tribblog

In the shadow of the Virginia Tech tragedy, in a time when the state had vowed to reform a mental-health care system that allowed troubled young shooter Cho Seung Hui to "slip through its cracks," Virginia's Governor is now planning to dynamite that "crack" into a veritable chasm, by closing the state's only state-run, public mental-health facility for children within the entire state. The Commonwealth Center for Children and Adolescents, a modern 48-bed hospital in Staunton, has long served as the "safety net" for children and adolescents from all over the state who desperately need inpatient mental-health evaluation and treatment, but who are unable to be accepted by - or to remain at - private facilities or community-based programs.

These children are typically from families - often underprivileged - who either have no private insurance, yet are not eligible for Medicaid; or who have seen their benefits run out, resulting in discharge or transfer from such facilities. A frequent common-denominator is that many are children who other facilities have been completely unable to manage and care for effectively, unpredictably aggressive children, with violent behaviors. Additionally, Virginia's juvenile courts often refer teens who have charges pending against them, for mental-health evaluation.

This is not a long-term care facility. The average length of stay at the center is typically less than a month.

Without this facility, many very troubled children will have no where else to turn for help.

The consequences of this plan are troubling: a possible increase in teen suicides; a rise in the juvenile incarceration rate; and the downward spiralling of precious young lives.

A "town-hall" style meeting was held on Wednesday, Jan. 7 at the CCCA, in which employees of the center, mental-health professionals in the community, parents of children treated at the center(past & present), and other members of the community voiced their empassioned concerns about the closing of this vital facility. VA Department of Mental Health, Mental Retardation, and Substance Abuse Services Commissioner Jim Reinhard, and Secretary of Health and Human Resources Marilyn Tavenner had traveled from Richmond to discuss the plans to close the CCCA with employees and the general public.

A common theme of the comments, questions and criticisms was directed at the state's apparent lack of any real concrete contingency plan; i.e. what the state can or will do, once the facility has been closed, to ensure that high-risk children and teens who are in need of such services, are not turned away by private hospitals and/or community-based agencies, as they always have been up to now. Many believe that high-risk, combative children and adolescents will simply wind up in juvenile detention, where some may attempt suicide, and all will not be receiving the mental-health care that they so desperately need.

On a separate note, questions were raised regarding the 2009 VA State Budget assigning a value of $12 million to (for the sale of) the 28-acre CCCA property; and the "co-incidental" plan of the city of Staunton to see this land developed commercially, as part of a huge new retail shopping, restaurant and lodging "multi-use" complex, alongside Interstate 81's Staunton exit 222. Both matters were announced the same day, within hours of each other. Some wonder if this could represent the true motive behind the planned closing of this facility: a thinly-disguised case of "eminent domain".

- Rick Gibson
The writer is a former employee of the CCCA. Versions of this piece have appeared in other publications.

Campaign for the Commonwealth Center (Jan. 6, WVIR-TV, Charlottesville)

Parents, Employees Speak Out About CCCA (Jan. 9, WHSV-TV, Harrisonburg)

Labels: budget, ccca, health, kaine, virginia

// posted by Steve Thurston @ 6:57 AM 1 comments

Poop and the cafeteria are made for each other.

Where else will you get hundreds of little poop manufacturers right there on the factory floor?

We’re talking poop, here. Not feces. Not bowel movements.

Poop.

The stuff we all make but don’t want to talk about.

Funny and disgusting both. Actually, funny because it’s disgusting.

Science-by-van Coordinator Susannah Bishop and her trusty poop-lab assistant Brandi Tyner from the Richmond-based Science Museum of Virginia understand.

Like the pros they are, they talk the language of poo to the grammar school set.

“Droppin’ the kids at the pool.”

“Takin’ the Browns to the Superbowl.”

In 30 minutes during K.W. Barrett Elementary’s Science Night, they “digested” a bowl of hot dog, corn, green bean and "red velvet twinkie." From mouth to anus, poop in 30 minutes.

To the bowl/mouth of food was added “saliva." (Eeeeeewwwww!)

(They "didn’t have much time” to collect all that bottled saliva while driving the van from Richmond.)

The food was masticated with potato mashers then poured through the esophagus--let's talk peristalsis--into the ziploc bag/stomach.

If it’s rejected, it’s vomit. If it makes gas that can’t escape little-by-little, it’s a burp. (Pause here for a burping contest.)

Add some “stomach acid” and shake it around. Pour it into the small intestine and sponge out the nutrients (Eeeeeewwwwwwwww!).

(“You’ve got 18 feet of small intestine, right here. It’s all smushed in.”)

Squeeze that sponge-filled-with-nutrients into the blood stream/bucket.

And on to the large intestine, also called the colon. Time to sponge out the water (EEEEeeeeewwwwwwww!).

(If our bodies didn’t sponge out the water, we’d do nothing but drink all day.)

Then the poop pauses in the rectum, "What we like to call the poop waiting room....It’s a little bag. It’s where the poop hangs out until you’ve got enough.”

Then finally the anus passes the unwanted material through a cut in the corner of the ziplock bag.

And remember kids: “Your poo’s going to tell you how healthy you’re eating.” If it’s hard and sinks, too many sweets and too much fat. If it’s full of fiber, it floats. “Now you’ve got the scoop on poop. Make ‘em float.”

For the record, the adults laughed, too.

Labels: Barrett, health, poop, schools

// posted by Steve Thurston @ 12:31 PM 1 comments