Project Gives Troubled Children a Friend

It is a program that has been hailed as a “magical” antidote to truancy, gangs and teen-age pregnancy. And children at La Colima Elementary School last week told a group of adults, including Gov. Pete Wilson, exactly what they do in it.

“I play,” said Benjamin Bonds, a bespectacled third-grader who was put into the program because he chattered during class and was too aggressive with other children.

“I play with G.I. Joes,” added Joseph Hockaday, a second-grader who used to spend recess hours alone, crying, in the sandbox.

Cameras clicked as Nicole Sandoval, a first-grader whom teachers once described as shy and lonely, ran into a corner of the room to show Wilson her favorite toy: a mechanical kitten. For the next five minutes, Nicole stroked the kitten in her lap, without smiling.

Benjamin, Joseph and Nicole are among 300 children in the East Whittier City School District’s Primary Intervention Program, a 4-year-old project now in six elementary schools that identifies and assists students with low self-esteem who are having trouble adjusting to school.

In 1987, a survey of 4,500 elementary schoolchildren in the district identified 14% of the students to be what educators call “at risk.” The children--about twice as many boys as girls--were shy, withdrawn, aggressive, moody or lacked self-esteem. Some suffered from learning problems and unhappy home lives. Research shows that many children with these problems, if they are not helped, fall into patterns of truancy, unhappiness and crime.

The intervention program rejects complex psychological theories and expensive therapeutic tools for an old-fashioned remedy: a dose of attention. “There’s something magical about warm and caring adults who center attention on children,” said Dr. Toni Hudson, director of pupil personnel services and special education for the district. “Something happens.”

The most important element of the program is what children call their “special friend,” an aide who has been trained to listen, play with and comfort the children. “It seems so simple that it can’t work,” aide Cathy McMath said. “But a lot of these children are just crying out for a little bit of attention.”

Each child in the 12-week program leaves his regular classroom one day a week to spend 30 minutes playing with the aide in a cheerful playroom full of posters and toys. The child is free to do whatever he wants. A few just sit and stare, or cry. But most play.

One boy whose father left him pounded a punching bag during his sessions last fall. A girl from a broken family played house. Another girl whose single mother had begun dating pretended McMath was her mother in a role-playing game. “Now don’t bring that bum Harry home again tonight,” she scolded McMath.

“Play is the language of children. It helps them work out their feelings,” McMath said.

McMath said one first-grader in the program, who seems neglected and has “no home life at all,” is so anxious to see her during his regular class hours that he thinks up excuses to go to the bathroom so he can walk past the program’s playroom. “I’ll look up, and ‘Hi Cathy! Bye Cathy!’ There he’ll be again,” she said.

There is only so much the counselors can do. McMath recalls the time after last Thanksgiving Day when one of her boys told her that he was sad because his family had nothing to eat during the holiday.

Aide Linda Latham last year had two sisters who spent their entire session on her lap--hugging her and begging her to take them home with her. They were abused children, she said. The girls’ family moved out of the area last year; they could not pay the rent. Latham does not know where they are now, or if they have been lucky enough to get help. “It breaks your heart,” she said.

Abused children and students with severe emotional problems are referred to the appropriate agencies for immediate help, counselors said. Many of the children suffer from relatively minor problems that can be cured--if caught in time.

“I didn’t have any friends,” Nicole said last week, sitting on Latham’s lap. “Here I play with the dollhouse. Sometimes, I play with the cat. I love my special friend.”

Nicole remains shy and quiet. But now, her grandmother reports, Nicole has other friends as well.

The program’s annual cost to the district is $75,000, which comes out to about $250 per student beyond the normal expenses of schooling, Hudson said. Administrators said the program has improved the behavior of 80% of those who are in it. Improvement is measured in part in terms of how well the child gets along with other children and does the schoolwork.

La Colima Principal Marlene Carabello-Dalton said that the program has resulted in fewer disciplinary visits to her office. The program has been so successful that last week the new governor made it an example of the kind of “preventive government” he urges as a solution to some of the state’s many social ills.

Wilson said that hugs and attention can deal far more effectively with troubled children than expensive remedial programs. “The success of this kind of program will prevent many children from becoming dropouts, members of drug gangs, and teen-age mothers,” he said.

Along with the balloons and flowers that greeted the governor, however, were some pointed comments from local educators. They said there has not been enough funding, both at the state and federal levels, to expand a program that has proven to be effective for decades.

The approach used in the program took root in Rochester, N.Y., in 1957. Since then, it has been studied and praised extensively. And yet today there are only 300 such programs in school districts around the world. About 64 of the districts are in California, according to school officials, who said that the programs are scattered throughout the state.

There are 1,098 public elementary schools with 983,648 students in Los Angeles County. Educators have estimated that at least a third of these students may be at risk. Yet so far there has been funding for only two of the programs in county elementary schools, both in Whittier school districts. Together these programs serve only about 350 children. “We know that the need is there,” Dr. Ada L. Jones, a liaison officer with the county Department of Mental Health, told the governor.

The PIP program is funded with state grants and school district money, Hudson said. It is supervised by workers from the county Mental Health Department. State money comes from the sale of property and goods confiscated from drug dealers. “Poetic justice,” Wilson called it.

Wilson said he has proposed increasing the vehicle license fee and the excise tax on alcohol to raise more than $900 million to provide funding for programs like PIP. “What we have seen in recent years is that mental health has been the stepchild at the table, getting the crumbs, being crowded out by the budget process,” he said. “That has to change.”

Parents agree. “More children need this kind of help before it turns tragic,” said Paulette Rodriguez, whose son Adam is in the program. “My son is lucky. They nipped his problem in the bud before he grew up to start stealing cars or something like that.”

Last fall, 8-year-old Adam suddenly began to have trouble in school. The first-grader could not concentrate. His grades slid. He was acting out in class. His mother grew alarmed when she noticed his drawings depicted stick figures on separate sides of a house. They all had long teeth and they were scowling.

Adam’s parents separated last fall.

After 12 weeks in the program, where Adam likes to fence and practice karate, his grades have improved, he seems happy, and he gets along better with other children, his mother and McMath said.

Just last week, he drew a picture of himself, his mother said. There was a big smile scrawled on his face.