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HomeMy WebLinkAboutResolutions - 1998.11.19 - 25483Miscellaneous Resolution #98305 BY: Franfunos,Distict45 DiRE: COMMUNITY MENTAL HEALTH - FURTHER EXPLORATION OF THE USE OF FAIRLAWN CENTER WITH THE STATE DEPARTMENT OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET (#1639810B) To the Oakland County Board of Commissioners Chairperson, Ladies and Gentlemen: WHEREAS the State Department of Management and Budget has declared the state building and property known as Fairlawn Center to be surplus state property; and WHEREAS the closure of Fairlawn Center, a state psychiatric hospital for children, was the source of much debate in Oakland County; and WHEREAS the closure of Fairlawn Center necessitated the development of alternatives to state facility utilization by children with mental health needs; and WHEREAS the CMH Program has acted responsibly in developing options for our county and has used other programmatic resources for our children at locations outside Oakland County, often times hours away from family; and WHEREAS there continues to be underserved children and families that require alternative services located within our county in more convenient locations; and WHEREAS collaboration between public agencies is a goal of the new state human service delivery policy and the use of Fairlawn Center is intended to support such collaborations in family arrangements with other agencies such as the Family Independence Agency; and WHEREAS the use of Fairlawn Center by Oakland County CMH will also support partnerships between public agencies and private non-profit agencies, another goal of state policy and of Oakland County CMH; and WHEREAS the Fairlawn Center building has been viewed favorably by families as a center that offered safe haven for children with disabilities and behavioral challenges, a haven that was lost to our community with the closure of the state hospital; and WHEREAS the Fairlawn location has many existing attributes relative to the building and grounds design and location in our community that make it very child and family friendly, as well as having historical use for similar purposes as outlined in our letter to the State Department of Management and Budget; and WHEREAS the citizens of Oakland County, through efforts of the Foundation for Mentally Ill Children, donated significant funding ($665,000) to add a new addition to the building several years ago and have indicated support for our vision. NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Oakland County Board of Commissioners supports the Oakland County CMH Board in partnership with families, mental health advocacy groups, and elected officials at the state and county level in their efforts to continue dialogue with the State Department of Management and Budget regarding the future use of Fairlawn Center by the Oakland County Community Mental Health Board, in collaboration with other relevant public and private agencies, in an attempt to improve the access to and components of our system of care for citizens with disabilities and their families. Chairperson, I move the adoption of the foregoing resolution. Fran Amos, District #5 COMMUNITY MENTAL HEALTH AK LAND OCOUWOW September 22, 1998 ((IMMUNITY MENTAL NM 1200 N. Telegraph Pontiac, MI 48341 248/858-1221 Fax: 248/975-9768 Mary Ellen Perkowski State of Michigan, Deptartment of Management and Budget c/o Stevens T. Mason Building P.O. Box 30026 Lansing, MI 48909 Dear Ms. Perkowski, I am writing this letter as a follow-up to our recent telephone conversation regarding the future use of the state property and building known as Fairlawn Center in the City of Pontiac. You may recall from our conversation and my subsequent voice mail message to you that the Oakland County Community Mental Health Services Program is interested in a direct lease relationship with the State of Michigan to become a tenant in the Fairlawn Building. I have had an opportunity to discuss the feasibility of this arrangement with key stakeholders in my community who believe that the use of the building to serve as a site for public mental health services has value for many constituent groups. I would like to discuss the pursuit of such an arrangement with the Community Mental Health Board this month if tenancy in the Fairlawn Building has feasibility. The vision that we have for the building could take one of two different forms. As the lessee, we would either occupy the space with direct and contracted service providers to Oakland County children with disabilities and their families exclusively or we could provide a combination of services to both adults and children with disabilities at this location. The latter option would be dependent on the ability to divide the building in such a way that separate space and building entrances for adults and children could be maintained. In both cases the planned use for the space would be dependent upon the physical plant layout of the building and the building mechanics to support the groups that would be housed there. - However, since this is just a preliminary expression of our interest, I will devote the remainder of this correspondence to giving you an idea about the types of programs we envision locating at the site and our rationale for why the Department of Management and Budget should choose to move forward with us in more discussion. As I mentioned to you on the telephone, we are confident that our ideas will be supported by our community, our elected officials, and the mental health consumers that we serve. Children's Residential Crisis Stabilization This program would use an experienced children's residential provider (sub-contractor to CMH) to provide a short term licensed non hospital residential service for children with serious emotional disturbance. Oakland CM:H together with the Oakland County Family • Independence Agency have been holding joint administrative staffings for about a year now to establish improved coordination of service to kids and their families in Oakland County. Together we have established a joint work plan for our mutual staff that identifies service gaps and other priorities that we share. The need for this service is at the top of our list. Both of our agencies have been forced due to the lack of this resource, to send kids to psychiatric hospitals or to approve extended stays that are not only expensive but in addition not always appropriate to the child and family's needs because other alternatives are too far away (out of the county entirely) or cannot be counted on to have available space to accommodate our needs. This type of program would not only assist us in diverting children from psychiatric hospitals who do not need this level of care but could also serve as a step down for kids ready to leave the hospital but for whom alternative services are not yet in place. CMH alone estimates needing at least 10 such beds a month and FIA would be in a position to make still additional referrals. We have also contacted our sister CMH Board to the east, Macomb County that may also be interested in purchasing this service as they too are experiencing similar resource difficulties. Children's Out of Home Respite Care Another use for the Fairlawn building would be for the provision of licensed out of home respite care for children with severe emotional disturbance and/or for children who have a developmental disability and in addition challenging behavior. Again, although Oaldand County CMH has perhaps one of the most mature respite programs for families with disabled children in the state with many options for families to choose from, there is presently no available out of home option for these children that families can count on being available. This is vital in supporting families who have full time caretaking responsibilities for these kids most of whom require close supervision and care. Giving families a planned break to spend time with other kids, take a vacation or just to rest will assist them in maintaining their disabled child within the family and household and in most cases avoid permanent or longer term placement out of the home. Presently, CMH estimates that we could use 24 beds for this purpose each month. FIA in turn has expressed a need for a safe and "kid friendly" place that they too might access for the children that they serve who may be between permanent placements or for whom they too may need a temporary place to stay and be cared for as their staff work out arrangements with family. Again, FIA and CMH would work together along with key community stakeholders to select a residential provider to operate the program at this location. Relocation of the 24 hour Psychiatric Screening Site - At the present time, the CMH 24 hour, seven day a week psychiatric screening site that is run under contract to us by Common Ground Sanctuary, Inc. has outgrown it's commercial office space location on Woodward Avenue. Depending upon the space available at Fairlawn another great idea for the Fairlawn building would be to relocate the program here. This would greatly assist with the responsiveness of crisis services to our citizens as crisis stabilization services for kids would be in the same building. It also means that the 24 hour psychiatric and other professional staff would be right on the premises to assist both the crisis stabilization staff and respite program when ever needed. • Short Term Children's Day Program for Expelled Students Still another idea would be to conduct a short term day program for children and adolescents with disabilities that have been expelled from public school programs. Presently, the school code of conduct which has been recently impacted by kids expelled from school for weapon possession and a number of other behavioral problems are sent home to parents that are often at a loss for managing acting out behavior. Parents are often forced to make impossible choices of whether to take time off work to supervise kids, placing their employment at risk or to leave kids at home without supervision. Our expectation would be to work with our Intermediate School District and our 28 local districts on a collaboration for the provision of such a service with shared funding responsibility, entrance and exit criteria and a strong family support and education component. The capacity needs for such a program is unknown at this writing. Relocation of Mercy Care Network Central Quadrant Case Management Office Depending upon available space in the building, another need for Oakland County CMH is the relocation of this service to adults with serious mental illness out of the current downtown Pontiac location. Presently this program which houses the psychiatric, nursing, case management and other clinical staff that serve the population of our consumers living in the City of Pontiac, is causing some difficulty for the city and Downtown Business Authority. The programs office space is very cramped and regrettably located in an area of the city that is targeted for more commercial and retail development. Although we at CMH believe that disabled Pontiac citizens have the right to move freely in the city, waiting for appointments and generally congregating outside the building or at other public places like the library and district courthouse nearby has been the subject of much discord in this community. On the other hand because the 900 or so consumers served by this agency need to be seen by professional staff that visit them at home as well as in the office, locating this office in close proximity is essential. As you may be aware, Fairlawn is certainly outside the downtown area but is still only minutes away. The office space needs of this program are substantial and barrier free commercial office space that is vacant and adjacent to the downtown area is non existent. Other Office Space for Non profit Organizations Serving Children and Others with Disabilities Another idea that could be easily incorporated into this building plan use would be the ability to accommodate satellite offices for other human service agencies that also serve this population of consumers. Our vision would suggest that as has been the history of Fairlawn, the building is seen as a resource for families in need. I have spoken to at least one other non profit agency serving children that is located in another part of the county that is considering opening up a small Pontiac office that might be interested in such an arrangement. I have hesitated with any further inquiry as the discussions with you are at such a preliminary stage. Other Rationale to Support Further CMH Discussion for the Use of Fairlawn Finally, I would like to share a few more general thoughts and ideas about why viewing the CMH system as a viable tenant for the Fairlawn Building should be of interest to DMB. - The newest addition to the Fairlawn building a few years ago was in good part supported with fundraising by Oakland County citizens who have been and remain committed to seeing the building used to serve children. These key stakeholders remain very involved with disabled kids in Oakland County served by both CMH and FIA. I have discussed these ideas for the building use with these dedicated citizens and they have been preliminarily very supportive not only of the • collaboration and planning that we have been doing with FIA but also in the use of the building for the purposes outlined here. - Governor Engler has really gotten behind two very important themes in the delivery of human services that we not only support but I believe our proposal embraces. Namely the need for public agencies to collaborate to improve services to the citizens we serve and secondly the need to develop private / public partnerships to maximize resources and help communities invest in real and practical solutions to the problems our kids and families face. This is not an easy task in a county with the size and complexity of Oakland County I can assure you. However, we have been at it for a while now, determined our mutual cross agency priorities, developed strategies to address them in partnership with our customers and remain committed to making them happen for the people that need us. -The Fairlawn location itself has other attributes that make it a very attractive site for our vision. It is centrally located in our county and easily assessable off Pontiac Lake Road. It is close to the Oakland County FIA and CMH offices, Oakland ISD, Probate Court and three local hospitals. The building has already been used residentially for children so the physical plant itself has accoutrements like a commercial kitchen, office space, ample parking, recreational facilities and so on to accomodate the use. In addition, because of the surrounding property and former use, the traffic patterns 24 hours a day, seven days a week will not disturb local neighbors. - As already mentioned, when Fairlawn was a state hospital it was seen by our community as so much more. It represented safe haven for kids and families struggling with the problems only those with a disabled child can truly understand. We believe that our proposal will breath life back into a community that lost so much real or preceived, with the closure of the state hospital prorgram. Providing a host of services and supports to kids and families in our own community, not hours away, is what we really need to demonstrate our committment to them. We believe that the use of this building will greatly assist us in making good on our promise that we understand what families are experienceing and stand ready to respond in user friendly ways that are practicle and yet state of the art. In closing, it is my hope that I have peeked your interest and that as you and your DMB colleages consider our preliminary proposal you will allow us an opportunity to speak with you further and in more detail about our vision. This would be a very "good thing" for our community and demonstrate real commitment on the part of the state to partner with local groups to serve the citizens we are all responsible too. I look forward to hearing from you. Respectfully, Sandra M. Lindsey, MSW, ACSW Executive Director cc: Comm. Fran Amos, Chairperson Oakland County CMH Comm. John P. McCulloch, Chairperson Oakland County Board of Commissioners Jerry Hall, Director Oakland County FIA • Resolution #98305 November 19, 1998 The Chairperson referred the resolution to the General Government and Public Services Committees. There were no objections.