Child Crisis Center May Open in Mid-’92 : Camarillo: Organizers of the $10-million Casa Pacifica envision a homelike ‘little village’ for victims of abuse. Emergency counseling services and temporary shelter will be provided.

Ventura County officials are optimistic that a new crisis care center to provide abused children with counseling services and temporary shelter will be in operation by the summer of 1992.

Casa Pacifica, a joint project of the county and a nonprofit agency of the same name, will provide much-needed stability for the children, many of them victims of sexual and physical abuse in their natural families, county officials said.

“Having a child removed from the home, even if it is done to protect them, is very scary and can be extremely difficult on the kids. Casa Pacifica will alleviate those transitions,” said Diana Caskey, a program assistant for the county children’s services division.

Casa Pacifica is scheduled to be built on a 22-acre site on Lewis Road near long tracts of Camarillo farmland. The county, which is leasing the land from the state, will charge Casa Pacifica $150 per year, project organizers said.

Officials estimate that the project will cost a total of $10 million. The county has committed $4 million to the project, and organizers have raised $2.3 million so far in private donations. They say they are confident that they can raise the rest during the next year.

Under the current child abuse care system in the county, victims are taken from their natural families and placed in the temporary care of foster families under contract to the county, often far from their homes, county officials said.

Each month, between 45 to 60 children ranging in ages from 1 to 17 years are removed from their homes because of suspected abuse. Since the county has only 23 beds available on a full-time emergency basis--at the homes of foster families and a group shelter--officials must often find other foster families willing to provide shelter.

Typically, social workers have 15 to 45 days to investigate the children’s cases and arrange either a court-supervised return to the family or long-term foster care.

Meanwhile, the children are shuttled around the county for a battery of medical and psychiatric tests, officials said. In most instances, they are placed too far from their schools to attend classes.

Casa Pacifica is designed to solve those problems, said county Supervisor Susan K. Lacey, one of the project’s earliest supporters.

“Basically, we are talking about molested, abused children or children their parents can’t take care of,” Lacey said. “It gives social workers time to stop, and professionals to have a look at them and make a personalized placement.”

The crisis care center will feature an array of services, including a medical clinic and psychiatric counseling for the children, who will be housed in four residential cottages. The center is designed to house 85 children, including babies, toddlers and teen-agers.

Besides centralizing services, the center will allow children to be visited by their families in a secure environment. And siblings taken into custody won’t have to be separated as they often are now, Caskey said.

Caskey remembered two siblings who might have done better at Casa Pacifica. The elder sibling had emotional and behavioral problems that were affecting the younger child, she said. Although the children wanted to stay together, they were placed in different homes.

“Our only solution was to separate them, and that caused anxiety on both of their parts. And yet it was not really in their best interest to be placed in the same home together,” she said.

At Casa Pacifica, the children could have seen each other in a supervised setting, Caskey said.

Other children with severe emotional problems will also benefit from the professional supervision, she said.

“We have had children that were suicidal and needed specialized care and were placed in a family home, and the foster parents were not equipped to deal with this suicidal behavior. Some behaviors can go on unnoticed,” Caskey said.

Douglas Miller, deputy director of children’s services, said he looks forward to the opening of the center.

Part of the job of social workers is to find appropriate families for children who need long-term foster care. The job requires in-depth knowledge of the child’s background and the luxury of time, and Casa Pacifica will try to provide both, he said.

Some county residents, however, are waiting for more facts. Donna Schisler, who cares for four foster children and has often given short-term shelter, said she is concerned that children will not get enough attention at the center.

“I am sort of waiting to see what will happen,” she said. “Maybe there won’t be enough people to give the kids personal attention. I’d hate to see the children go from a dysfunctional family to a place with no real attention.”

Mindful of such concern, Casa Pacifica organizers said they will work hard to build a support system for the children.

“We want to make it warm and homelike. We envision a little village. So it won’t be threatening and institutional for the children,” said M. Betty Ketron, the project’s fund-raising director.

At the center, each child will have a personalized treatment plan--from medical and psychological care to schooling. It will be a team effort among the different professionals involved in each child’s case, Ketron said.

Plans for the project, which go back to 1988, include such amenities as intricate landscaping, a library, fireplaces, individual bedrooms for older children and a gym.

Once the center is built, it will be managed by members of Casa Pacifica and other nonprofit children’s agencies, Ketron said. Some county staff members will also work at the center, she said. The county will pay Casa Pacifica for its shelter care services.

Ketron, who has worked 40 years with several nonprofit agencies, said Casa Pacifica is the pinnacle of her career.

“This to me is getting to the very root of the problems we are working with,” she said. “It kind of erodes the very fabric of society. Casa Pacifica shows the children that they may have been betrayed by their parents, but the community cares for them.”