Rehab center for teens tries to recover
By Chris Cadelago
UNION-TRIBUNE
July
23, 2006
DESCANSO
– Elliott LaBarge worked weekends, got good grades and kept to
designated areas when skateboarding.
At the same time, Elliott and a
friend swigged beers, snorted cocaine and traveled to Tijuana
for tacos and heroin.
“He had this power over me,”
Elliott now 17, said of his friend. “It was weird.”
After living 10 months at Phoenix
House Academy – a residential rehabilitation-counseling center
for teens – he shook subordination.
“I am a leader now,” Elliott
said, smiling. “I respect myself.”
The center that changed his life
is on its feet again nearly three years after the Cedar fire
charred two residence halls, a counseling office and a large
barn.
But some sweeping changes locally
and statewide mean the challenges aren't over. Phoenix House
officials say they are getting fewer referrals from the courts,
which send teens on probation.
In the meantime, Phoenix House
has built two dorms, begun a new program, sold half the center's
sprawling acreage, and will bring in a new director at month's
end.
“It took us some time to get
things together after the fire,” said Elizabeth Urquhart,
Phoenix's regional director. “Our goal now is to bring in teens
who need help.”
The center sustained $750,000 in
property damage in the 2003 blaze and closed for a few months.
Officials secured $400,000 from insurance and the Federal
Emergency Management Agency, and $255,000 in donations to
rebuild.
With the buildings once again
intact, Elliott and the 29 teenagers he oversees as part of the
program's “lead by example philosophy” attend classes in the
mornings, counseling in the afternoons, and spend their weekends
cleaning.
Every month a new leader emerges
from among the newly sober group of teens. Elliott is this
month's choice. It is all part of the rehabilitation methods
used by the 100 Phoenix Houses in nine states.
The center, nestled in remote
Sherilton Valley just north of Descanso, looks like a summer
camp. The dusty, dry campus is dotted with small offices and
dorms that surround a clear blue swimming pool. Residents said
it is close enough to San Diego for comfort and far enough from
the drug addicts and rapists who haunted their lives.
Every Tuesday, residents'
families visit the campus for tea and crumpets, a long-standing
tradition. With the help of a state grant, the center's leaders
hope to get families even more involved.
Urquhart said the center will
launch a program called Families as Healers aimed at helping
teens make the transition from the live-in program to their
familiar environments.
Another change to the center came
a few months ago when officials sold 92 of its 172 acres, said
Winnie Wechsler, executive director of Phoenix Houses of
California.
“They were unused parcels of land
that we knew we were never going to use,” Wechsler said. “We
struggle in silence way out there, and many don't know or
understand what it takes to run a facility like this.”
Proceeds from the sale will go
toward endowments, and officials hope to cycle the money back to
the three Phoenix Houses in San Diego, Urquhart said.
At the Descanso-area center, the
county's arm of Alcohol and Drug Services contracts out 20 beds,
which are always full.
The other 20 beds, 10 of which
are now empty, tend to go to teens who are sent there by their
parents or the county Probation Department. From 2002 to 2003,
48 probation-referred residents went through the program. The
number fell to 28 last year and now stands at six.
Phoenix House's firm restrictions
– no history of violence allowed – combined with the fact that
several other facilities and treatment methods are being
considered statewide has led to fewer referrals, said Derryl
Acosta, a spokesman for the county Probation Department.
Overall, the county's number of
juvenile probation referrals to full-time centers dropped from
more than 600 in the late 1990s to a little more than 100 today.
Of those 100, 25 are placed in local centers.
“The reason for this shift is
researchers who study teenage drug addiction have found that
it's more effective to treat kids in day-treatment centers,”
Acosta said. “It's a changing landscape, and all organizations,
including Phoenix House, are adapting to it.”
The challenge of bringing more
youths to the center will be charged to its new director, Ron
Plotts, who takes over Aug 1. Plotts is the director of the
Orange County Phoenix House and once ran the Descanso campus. He
did not return calls for comment.
“Ron comes with many years of
experience in the therapy community,” Urquhart said. “He will
work with our referral sources to help fill our beds and also
help implement our Families as Healers program.”
Connie Armijo, 17, will graduate
from the live-in portion of the program in three weeks. After
that, Connie will get one more year of outpatient care while
living at home – which is where most teens relapse. Before
receiving treatment, she didn't have friends, smoked
methamphetamine regularly and attempted suicide several times.
Connie said she wasn't passionate
about much in high school because she figured she wouldn't live
very long.
“I just thank God all the time
that I made it, and I am here,” she said. “I want to live now.
What's more important than that?”
Chris
Cadelago is a Union-Tribune intern in the East County office.
Chris Cadelago: (619) 593-4954;
chris.cadelago@uniontrib.com
