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Services
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in Rappahannock County. Family guidance started here one half day a week in 1977, when therapist Bob Treanor came up from Culpeper to see clients and used the children's chairs in one of the Sunday School rooms at Trinity Episcopal Church.
Over time that built up to one fulltime counselor who was overwhelmed when people became more aware the service was available. Mr. Treanor has been with Rappahannock Family Guidance Services off and on since the beginning. Gary Rafala has been a therapist with RFGS for nine years, the past two as director of the local clinic.
Last year Janet Bessmer came in as a part time child specialist. She is in Rappahannock on Mondays and Wednesdays and in Fauquier on Tuesdays and Thursdays. She said she finds working in Rappahannock "refreshing." She appreciates the small size of the county which makes it possible for her to get to know the people in the public schools and social services who are also working with children.
She said she always tries to involve the parents when she works with children. Because her training is as a clinical psychologist she is also able to do a full range of psychological testing and evaluations, mostly for children.
Mr. Treanor said supporting local mental health clinics is a bargain for the state. It has enabled people to continue to live in the community who otherwise would have to be in mental hospitals. At one time he had a case load of 30 clients; four of them would have otherwise have been in Western State mental hospital, he said. Because he was able to treat them as outpatients, he was saving the state half a million dollars a year. It is also "healthier for the clients," he said.
In some cases clinic therapists have seen their clients through to the end of their lives, with few people aware that they were clinic patients. Mr. Treanor said, "If you don't hear about them because they're not behaving erratically, we're doing our job, and we do it in a confidential way."
Mr. Rafala said some clients are covered by Medicare of Medicaid, and some are covered by private health insurance, but the clinic's services are available to everyone, even those with
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