Suicide Crisis Center’s Problems Attributed to ‘Self-Destructive’ Board

The way Dr. Robert E. Litman sees it, the Los Angeles Suicide Prevention Center’s problems could be resolved if the board of directors stopped engaging in “self-destructive” behavior.

The noted psychiatrist who co-founded the pioneering center about 30 years ago claims that “useless management jerks have (squandered) all of the agency’s money” in recent years.

“It has been one mistake after another,” Litman said of the board members. “They are incompetent.”

Litman’s charges, which the center denies, are the latest and most damaging to be hurled at the agency since half its telephone crisis-line counselors took the extraordinary step of walking off their jobs this month. The action came over the firing of a popular supervisor. But Litman and others with long ties to the Suicide Prevention Center, which was the first agency of its kind in the nation, say its problems run far deeper than that.

In interviews last week they accused the agency of committing a series of management blunders that have threatened the center’s well-being. Mass defections from the board, service cuts and worsening morale problems are among the most obvious signs of unrest at the faded green mansion in the heart of Koreatown that serves as the center’s headquarters, they said.

“Our services are only adequate now,” said psychologist Norman L. Farberow, another co-founder who joined Litman in taking the agency to task over recent management decisions. “The board does not understand what is involved in running a suicide prevention center.”

Farberow, who center pamphlets say is one of the world’s foremost suicide experts, said the agency is no longer setting the standard for suicide prevention because clinicians have been replaced by administrators in many instances.

The accusations have clearly disturbed an agency that has grown far more accustomed to being lauded than lambasted in the years since it first gained a reputation for landmark work in the field. As the directors held their monthly meeting last week, protesters chanted, “Down with the board!”

But Chairman Raphael Chaikin said the criticism is unwarranted. He said the board is taking steps to save the agency, not sabotage it.

“We had a lot of operations that didn’t produce revenue and we came to the decision that we needed to cut back,” he said. “We won’t be in a position to help others if we can’t help ourselves.”

Chaikin, a Newport Beach developer, said the center is afflicted with the same types of problems that plague other private, nonprofit agencies, mainly cutbacks in government grants and the ever-increasing difficulty of raising funds.

But reports of the center’s impending demise are greatly exaggerated, he added, despite the doomsday predictions of its critics.

“The center has operated at a deficit for years,” Chaikin said. “I don’t believe that’s a sin. . . . In terms of administration it is (actually) better supervised at this point.”

Suicide Prevention Center director Sheila Halfon also defended the changes that have occurred since Litman and Farberow surrendered control of the agency to the new board of directors in 1984, including the recent decisions to lay off a third of the center’s clinical and administrative staff and to sell its once profitable trio of methadone clinics.

Halfon said the changes were dictated by budget considerations. In its early years the center received as much as $10.2 million annually, but in recent times the budget has ranged from $2.6 million to $3.6 million as government funds have dried up. The center has operated at a deficit for the last three years. Halfon said that the methadone program has been especially costly. In the final months of 1987, the treatment facilities lost $21,000.

Focusing on the Goal

The cutbacks will make it possible for the center to focus more fully on the goal of suicide prevention and less on its financial problems, said Halfon, who also noted that the agency has just launched an ambitious new fund-raising drive, led by comedian Joan Rivers.

“The board wanted to put the center back on a firm financial footing,” Halfon said. “It came down to an economic decision and we needed to get the most out of our dollars. I have had to cut some key people. . . . It hurt a lot, but somebody had to do it.”

Litman and Farberow, who still serve as part-time clinical advisers and board members, do not accept Halfon’s explanation. They contend that a series of business moves undertaken by the board have left the center in precarious financial condition.

Between 1984 and 1987, for example, Litman said the board sold three commercial properties on Pico and Robertson boulevards with a combined value of nearly $2 million. Since then, Litman said, the board has not explained what became of the funds. Chaikin denies that there was any impropriety. He said the money remains in bank accounts administered by the agency.

No Further Details

Chaikin and Halfon both added, however, that they could not provide any further details about the center’s finances. The two administrators said that the 1986-87 fiscal report has yet to be published, and Chaikin said that he could not even guess where the budget stands.

Litman also charged that the center has done a poor job of fund-raising. He said that the board has alienated benefactors who once helped keep it afloat, and that it has failed to tap new revenue sources. Chaikin said he welcomes suggestions from Litman or anyone else who has ideas for improving the center’s financial picture.

“We have done the best we can under difficult circumstances,” he said. “But there’s no question that we have sustained losses.”

Series of Resignations

On the defections from the center’s board, which has dwindled from 20 to 12 people due to recent resignations, Chaikin said that the board had become too bloated anyway. He said it is easier to work with a small group of dedicated people than a larger group that “only comes in from time to time.”

Chaikin said he is also unconcerned about reports of morale problems and infighting. He said that the rift is healthy because it may lead to improvements at the center. But Litman and Farberow have become increasingly disturbed by developments they have witnessed.

The two suicide experts even went so far as to attempt a hostile takeover last November. In a letter to the board, Litman charged that the new management team had no training, no experience and no status in suicide prevention.

“The center is now in chaotic condition,” Litman said then, as he tried to get the board to return control of the center to himself and Farberow. “There has been a massive drain of money, services and credibility in the community.”

Kept Making Charges

The takeover attempt failed, but Litman and Farberow’s charges of incompetence continued.

Citing what he called one of the board’s worst moves, Litman said he was mortified when the center held a glitzy but unsuccessful fund-raiser at the Century Plaza Hotel featuring roast tenderloin of beef Madagascar, squash Portuguese, petit fours and entertainment by actress Suzanne Somers.

“I got quite upset,” Litman said. “This was my baby and it wasn’t being taken care of.”

Litman said the final straw came last month, when the board decided that Sam (Mickey) Heilig, the first counselor hired by Litman and Farberow and one of the nation’s foremost advisers on suicide prevention, would be among those laid off under the belt-tightening plan.

The board claimed that Heilig was expendable. But Litman, Farberow and the 40-odd telephone crisis line counselors who eventually walked off their jobs over the decision charged that Heilig actually was asked to resign in retaliation for his constant criticism of the board.

Presence Needed

A spokeswoman for counselors who walked out, Phyllis Meisler, said Heilig is vital to the group. “Without Mickey we can’t function,” she said. “Asking us to talk to people without clinical guidance is like asking the police to go into a shoot-out without any backup.”

Kamal Agleh, another crisis-line counselor who walked off the job after working the graveyard shift for nine years, said the board’s administrative cutbacks are “destroying the center.”

Toni Sargent, who has been involved with Heilig’s survivors’ therapy group since her 19-year-old son committed suicide two years ago, said the board has left her group in limbo.

“Some of the survivors say that this is like another loss,” Sargent said. “They are having a great deal of difficulty handling it and the board seems to be totally unsympathetic.”

Heilig is also embittered by the board’s action. He admits to being critical of management, but he challenges the contention that his $20,000-a-year part-time job was a budget buster. “Money is a spurious reason,” he said. “It is clear the board was out to get me.”

Kept His Job

Heilig has managed to hang onto his job so far. He said that he will continue to show up at the center until the telephone counselor walkout is resolved. The group has formed the Committee to Save the Suicide Prevention Center and is circulating a petition calling for the reinstatement of Heilig as their supervisor and Litman and Farberow as the center’s administrators.

Meisler claims that the quality of service on the telephone lines has declined dramatically since the volunteers and $6-an-hour part-time counselors left their jobs. But Halfon disputes that. She said that the center, which receives about 250 emergency calls a week, has remained well-staffed and has been “deluged” with offers of support from prospective replacements.

“The people who have remained on the lines are saddened by the turn of events, but they also have a renewed energy,” Halfon said. “There is a camaraderie on the crisis line.”

At the same time, Halfon added that the center would welcome the protesting counselors back if they were willing to return. But Meisler said that is unlikely under current conditions.

“They have essentially made it impossible for us to do our jobs,” she said. Meanwhile, Litman and Farberow said they will continue their efforts to regain control of the center.

“We used to take a great deal of pride in the fact that our center was looked upon as a model for others,” Farberow said. “What is needed there now is someone who understands suicide prevention.”