Camarillo Christmas : Santa Claus to Visit the Hospital’s Youngest Patients; Parents Usually Don’t

It is the best of times and the worst of times for 83 emotionally damaged boys and girls in the children’s program at Camarillo State Hospital.

The holiday decorations are going up in the dormitories and the toys collected by a half-dozen civic groups have begun to arrive.

In the coming weeks, church choirs will pass this way to sing their Christmas songs.

The Marines have come from Point Mugu with bags of goodies. Closer to Christmas, the Sheriff’s Department will fly Santa in by helicopter.

For many of these young mental patients--some of them just 8 years old--it will be a happy season.

But for others, according to the doctors and the social workers, it will be a time of special sorrow.

Camarillo State Hospital is one of only two state mental institutions in California that treats children.

They come here from all over Southern California, but mostly from Los Angeles.

The oldest patient is 17, but the average age is about 12.

Carol Chandlee is director of the children’s program at Camarillo. She and some of her key staff aides gathered last week to talk about the children there.

They spoke about the lives the children led before they arrived in Camarillo, what life is like for them inside a mental hospital and the changes in mood and behavior that come at Christmas time.

Most of the children have come from broken homes where there was serious drug or alcohol abuse, and 75% of them have suffered sexual and physical abuse, the officials said.

Before they could be admitted to Camarillo State Hospital, they were passed around from foster homes to private residential treatment centers for disturbed children.

But they proved to be too difficult to control, and the decision was made to place them in the most restrictive treatment environment available in California.

“They have conduct disorders,” said Cyril Mathai, a Camarillo psychiatrist. “They come to us having been unmanageable in other settings. Some are depressed. Maybe 25% have tried suicide. Some are psychotic.”

More than half of the children are on some sort of medication, usually Ritalin, to help control their behavior, Mathai said.

“One common thread that runs through the group is impulsivity,” he said. “Our most common patient is one who is impulse-ridden and can’t be controlled.”

Although some of the children at Camarillo have supportive parents who visit frequently and bring them home for visits at Christmas and other times of the year, the majority have little contact with their mothers or fathers at any time.

“Most of these children never had what you might consider a normal Christmas at home,” Mathai said. “Some don’t know what goes on at Christmastime elsewhere. It is a good time of year for them here.

“Our kids get all kinds of toys. The community is very generous,” he added. “The staff works harder to make it a happy time. We try to make up for lost families.”

But there are some differences among the children in their reactions to Christmas that break down along age lines.

“Among the younger kids, the mood is generally happier. They are jollier,” Mathai said. “For older kids, there is the awareness that Christmas is a family time and that they are not with their families. So there is a difference there.”

As Mathai and other staff members spoke, some of the children played outside in a fenced playground area, two boys scuffling because one had tossed the other’s hat over the fence.

In the three 25-bed dorms that house the children, small groups clustered around television sets in the day areas or sat quietly by themselves as a visitor was escorted through the facility.

The children’s area at Camarillo is set well apart from the hospital areas that hold the 1,100 adult patients at the facility, roughly half of them mentally ill, the other half developmentally disabled.

Surrounded by hills, the setting is a peaceful one for children whose lives have been an unending horror story.

“We talk about them as a group, and we put labels on them,” said social worker Bonnie Behrens. “But the kids here are all real individuals. Some work real hard to overcome their problems. Some are really cute. Some are dramatic.

“Most of the kids are not in touch with their parents,” she added. “If some of them go away at Christmas, it is a reminder to the others. They are a little moodier. It is not an easy time for them.”

The typical child patient at Camarillo stays for about 15 months, and is then judged ready to be placed in some less restrictive setting. Some, with parents capable of supporting them, ultimately make it home again.

The goal is to help the children at Camarillo develop to the point where they can ultimately go on to lead something approaching normal life outside an institutional setting.

Camarillo officials said there are no good statistics on how many make it and how many end up spending their adult lives in mental wards. Some of the kids will make it, others won’t.

“I don’t think any of our kids are completely cured,” Mathai said.

But Christmas at Camarillo is not a time when hospital officials choose to dwell on the harsh realities that confront them on a daily basis throughout the year.

It is a time for the choirs to sing and the Marines to come and Santa to land by helicopter. And also a time when the most detached of mental health professionals can let their emotional guard down just a bit.

“The staff empathizes,” said Mathai. “There are times here when you have to be very firm. But this time of year you tend to give them an extra pat and a hug.”