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Community Corner

City's First Childrens' Psychiatric Residence Coming to Brooklyn

RTF Brooklyn will be up and running in Brownsville by the end of the year

Soon, Brooklyn will be getting its first psychiatric residence for kids with mental illness.

RTF Brooklyn, located at 1960 Dean St. in Brownsville, will be the only residential treatment facility (RTF) in the city that accepts children with a normal IQ. An RTF in Queens serves the mentally challenged, while another in the Bronx only accepts children up to the age of 12.

The planned RTF, defined as a psychiatric hospital that is Medicaid funded, will be up and running by the end of the year, taking over a soon-to-close psychiatric hospital.

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RTF Brooklyn will be based largely on the same model and schedule as the August Aichhorn Center for Adolescents (AACFA) in Manhattan, which has been operating for 20 years.

“Our goal is to blend into the community as much as possible,” said Michael Pawel, director of AACFA who will lead the opening and management of the new facility.

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AACFA's current staff of 100 cares for 32 patients. The Brooklyn space will house three, eight-bedroom apartments with living room and dining room areas, and a central kitchen. All apartments will be co-ed facilities.

In addition, the facility will be heavily monitored at all times. Each group of eight children will have a unit leader and social worker assigned to them, and each shift will have a minimum of three staff members present.

“You’re dealing with kids who aren’t necessarily delinquent youngsters, but have to be supervised at all times,” said Pawel, who noted that kids stay in these facilities for an average of 30 months. “The idea is that as they prove themselves, they can start to spend more time out in the community on their own.”

Referrals for RTF’s come from residential treatment centers and childhood psychiatric facilities throughout the city. Pawel says that the children in RTF Brooklyn will be referred by a committee set up by a state agency. In addition, RTF Brooklyn will handle all types of mental illness.

“You name it, we probably deal with it,” said Pawel. “The idea is not to pick and choose (illnesses), because once you do that, you’re removing the people that need help most.”

Tonya Parker, a licensed clinical social worker at AAFCA, said RTF's schedule for children is heavily structured: They go to school on-site and have an individualized academic program based on school credits already received. In the afternoon, they participate in activities including music and dance, before attending more classes and working on assignments in the evenings.

On the weekends, children who are excelling in the program will get to participate in field trips.

“At AAFCA, we take them to places like Central Park or Columbia University,” said Pawel. “The busier they are, the less chance they have of getting into trouble.”

The lack of quality psychiatric care for the mentally ill in New York has been widely documented. Although RTF Brooklyn will only have 24 beds, Pawel says there are 150 kids throughout the city at any given time who would benefit from the level of care an RTF provides.

In addition, a 2009 Department of Federal Justice Investigation of four state juvenile justice facilities found several instances of staff using excessive force and restraints on children with mental illness.

However, Pawel denies that similar instances have taken place in facilities operated by the New York State Office of Mental Health.

“There have been reports of abuse in facilities for the mentally retarded, but that falls under the New York State Office for People With Developmental Disabilities,” said Pawel. “We’re a completely separate entity. I’m not saying it couldn’t happen, but it hasn’t been documented as of now.”

Pawel says that in 20 years, AAFCA has only had one serious injury, which was self-inflicted, and that the state has a comprehensive system in place for reporting allegations of abuse.

“Any allegations of abuse are reported to an incident investigator and the New York State Commission on Quality of Care,”  said Pawel. “Everything is highly documented. If you hold a kid back to break up a fight, that’s considered a restraint.”

Perhaps the biggest issue Pawel faces is how to blend RTF Brooklyn into the community. The facility is currently four square blocks long and surrounded by an iron fence, giving the feel of a prison. 

Currently, there are plans to remove the fence around two of the blocks and renovate the building so that the new entrance is on Dean Street.

“It’s a dead street right now, so it’s a big disadvantage from a community perspective,” said Pawel. “If there was more pedestrian traffic around the facility, it’s very possible the area would start to flourish.”

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