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pensate for inadequate resources. In the only program of its kind in the state, the board operates a behavior medicine unit at Culpeper Memorial Hospital, with the hospital providing and billing for room, board and nursing and Community Services providing and billing for the treatment staff.
“This gives patients an opportunity to receive short-term psychiatric care close to home and families,” said Mrs. Gorman, noting that studies show this type of arrangement may avoid the need for long-term institutionalization and gives the patient better odds at full recovery.
Through the family guidance clinics, retarded children and their families get assistance and support in planning for the future, applying for benefits and learning of all the available referral services.
Staff members visit the homes of families with retarded infants and toddlers to give training and instruction in both developmental skills for the child and parenting skills for the caregiver.
At Goldsborough House in Culpeper, mentally retarded adults learn the basic life skills that will enable them to function independently. The average stay is two years before moving on to supervised and unsupervised apartment programs. And the waiting list for both Goldsborough House and the apartment program is now FOUR years.
"We have no beds. Nothing. Zippo,” said Mrs. Gorman. The Community Services Center had applied to the state for a grant of $250,000 for a 10-bed, seven-day-aweek, 24-hour-a-day facility. This would have given the former patients released from state hospitals - the schizephrenics, the manic depressives and others suffering from various forms of personality disorders and chronic mental illness - a stopping off place on their way back to rejoin society. But the Department of Mental Health awarded only $125,000 for the project. “That would have paid for either the staff or the building, but not for both, so it forced us to rewrite the project.”
The result is Laurel House, an adult day program in Culpeper where patients from state hospitals and others who have been vocationally and socially disabled by mental illness get a chance to rebuild the confidence and skills necessary for productive and satisfying , lives. (Next week: a visit to Laurel House and a talk with Robert.
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