Many Needing Help End Up in Juvenile Hall

In the nearly three years since Christine Weidenheimer has run the county’s juvenile detention center, she has seen thieves, gang members, rapists and murderers. She was prepared for that.

What she wasn’t prepared for were the suicide attempts and outbursts of violence from youths battling everything from attention and hyperactivity disorders to schizophrenia.

But she sees all of that and more in running what has become one of Ventura County’s largest confinements for mentally ill teens: juvenile hall, a detention center for youthful offenders.

“We get kids who cut themselves and write with their blood on the wall, who smear feces on the wall, just everything,” Weidenheimer said. “And it would be really nice if we had the capacity to deal with them. But we don’t.”

Some county experts say the gravity of the problem is underscored by tragedies such as the one that occurred at Hueneme High School on Jan. 10. Oxnard gang member Richard “Midget” Lopez, 17, had several stints in juvenile hall by the time he walked onto the campus, grabbed a female student and held her at gunpoint until SWAT team members fatally shot him.

The boy told his 17-year-old hostage that he was distraught over family problems and wanted police to kill him. It was later revealed that he had suffered from hallucinations and heard voices, and even the numerous medications he was taking could not keep them under control.

“There are about a dozen kids just like this that we see everyday,” said Miles Weiss, the county’s supervising prosecutor for juvenile cases. “Kids whose mental illness is so acute, we all know them on a first-name basis. This county is letting those kids down.”

Of the roughly 130 youths housed each day at juvenile hall on North Hillmont Avenue in Ventura, Weidenheimer estimates that about half suffer from some form of mental illness. A third regularly see staff psychologists, and one in five take psychotropic drugs to help keep them stable.

*

Officials charged with treating the county’s mentally ill children who fall into the juvenile justice system say they are fighting an uphill battle. They are underfunded and ill-equipped to meet the needs of the increasing mentally ill population streaming through the courts.

“It’s very, very frustrating,” said Public Defender Alison O’Neill. “These are kids in crisis and they are in the hall, where there’s not adequate resources for them. It’s a Band-Aid approach, and we are just making do.”

Officials say they are doing the best they can with their limited resources. Fourteen psychologists provide counseling for juvenile hall, work on a 24-hour crisis team and staff the Frank A. Colston Youth Center, the county’s only 45-bed residential program for adolescents who have appeared in court. They are also responsible for treating mentally ill court dependents who are not in trouble with the law, including the 26 residents at Casa Pacifica, a treatment center in Camarillo.

“We are already running,” said Dr. Ellie Fritz, chief of children’s services for Ventura County Behavioral Health. “We are already at the threshold.”

There are never enough hands to meet the workload, Fritz said. And that problem became even worse during last summer’s budget hearings, when seven staff positions from her office were eliminated.

*

The crunch for workers became so intense that shortly after the cuts mental health officials bickered with the probation department over who should be responsible for providing therapy to youths in trouble with the law.

“These kids are under the purview of probation,” Fritz said. “They have medically ill children and they also have mentally ill children.”

Calvin Remington, head of probation, countered that the focus of his office is incarceration, not mental health services. That is Fritz’s job. Eventually the county’s chief administrative office intervened, ordering Ventura County Behavioral Health to continue picking up the tab.

And while budgets are slashed and county officials point fingers at who should be responsible for care, dozens of teens sit in the juvenile justice system waiting for help.

Probation officials say one of the toughest parts of their job is finding placement for the mentally ill. Group homes are usually the first choice--houses that are less restrictive than juvenile hall and often provide on-site counseling. But most of the houses cater to kids with mild disorders. The more profound the affliction, the greater the need and the fewer choices that are available, Remington said.

“Say the kid’s an arsonist, he mistreats animals, and he’s acting out,” Remington said. “Jesus, there’s nowhere to place that kid. It’s like sending a kid with cancer to a general practitioner. He needs a specialist. So most group homes won’t want him. And if we can’t find one for him, then he sits in juvenile hall.”

Weidenheimer is full of tales about mentally ill children in her care because they stole a car, struck a parent, lashed out at a teacher.

*

There was the 14-year-old in for auto theft. He had been in before for carrying a to school, petty theft, gang involvement and violating probation. He stood less than 5 feet tall and weighed all of 87 pounds, but was known for trying to start fights.

He ran into walls, scratched himself and screamed profanities for hours at a time. He was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, given medication and placed on and off suicide watch. Probation recommended a group home and intensive therapy.

But with his history, he was deemed too much trouble and instead sat in juvenile hall for more than a year before he was released back to his parents.

Another boy started showing up in juvenile hall repeatedly, beginning at age 12.

“That’s fairly typical,” Weidenheimer said. “If we get a kid that young, they generally have serious mental health issues. It usually takes a little longer for the ones who turn out to be just plain old crooks.”

The boy had gang ties, brought a weapon to school, assaulted a school employee and committed robbery. He was 15 when he last came in, eager to kill himself. He tried to hang himself with a sheet, with his T-shirt and with the paper gown he was assigned to wear while on suicide watch. A placement home in Wyoming agreed to treat him, until he tried to jump off the roof one night. Frustrated counselors sent him back to juvenile hall. Now he is at Colston.

Another boy displayed schizophrenic behavior when he came into the hall. He couldn’t go home--his father was schizophrenic, too. His mother was homeless. For lack of a better facility, he was sent to the place normally reserved for the state’s most hardened juvenile offenders, the California Youth Authority.

*

County experts agree that one solution is more residential treatment facilities specializing in mentally ill children with severe behavioral disorders. But money is the major stumbling block. So far, no new treatment centers are planned.

Supervisor Frank Schillo heads a committee dedicated to building a new Lewis Road facility in the next year. But not one of the 190 beds in the home will be earmarked for children. After the death of the teenager on Hueneme’s campus, Schillo said he may rethink that plan.

“It’s a real eye opener that this young person had mental health problems,” Schillo said. “This might prompt us to reconsider our plan. We might just start thinking about what can we provide for the younger person who is mentally ill in that site. We still have space there and time to incorporate programs for children if we need to.”

That would be a start toward filling the gaps routinely seen by people like Nancy Pierce, division manager for Colston Youth Center, which regularly has a waiting list of 17 to 25 kids.

“At present, we certainly are not meeting the need of our kids in the community,” said Pierce, who will begin heading a committee in the coming weeks to see where improvements can be made. “But we can start working to address those concerns now. There are ways to do this better.”