The Cottonwood Residential Treatment Center will not close its doors after all, but the facility’s future will look much different than its past.
The Missouri Department of Mental Health will privatized Cottonwood by making it a 16-bed Community Psychiatric Rehabilitation Impatient Diversion Children’s Residential Treatment Center for children ages 6 to 17, operated by the non-profit Community Counseling Center (CCC). It will also include six state-contracted treatment family and professional parent homes which will be contracted by the state and administered by the Department of Mental Health and CCC.
Current Cottonwood employees in good standing will receive preference for the new program, but not all employees will be guaranteed employment.
“Those professionals in Cottonwood who have been actively involved in the mental health treatment of these children will be given significant opportunity and share what they’ve been doing with the staff of Community Counseling Center,” State Rep. Kathy Swan said.
“The Community Counseling Center has not particularly focused on that particular type of treatment or treatment of that particular type of child. Therefore the staff of Cottonwood brings a great deal of experience about the types of treatment they’ve been using and the success rate of those particular treatments,” Swan said.
The announcement has released the freeze on admissions and the center can now allow up to 16 patients. It will immediately begin transitioning into the new program.
Last week Gov. Jay Nixon announced the release of more than $22 million for mental health services, job trainings and reimbursements to local governments. The funds included $241,404 for Cottonwood.
“We’re looking for the most cost effective way to continue the vital and important services not only at Cottonwood, but at other mental health facilities in the state,” Nixon said at an appearance at the Cape Girardeau Center Junior High on Thursday.
Over the summer, it was announced that $500,000 was withheld from Cottonwood after Gov. Nixon decided to veto more than $1.1 billion in Missouri’s budget.The planned closure of the 32-bed, state operated facility would leave only one facility of its kind in the state and about 95 employees out of jobs.
Swan and State Rep. Donna Lichtenegger drafted a plan in August to save Cottonwood that did not include privatization. Instead it involved adding services for people ages 17 to 20, reviewing the lease agreement and evaluating food service options.
According to Swan, the issue of Cottonwood closing its doors will no longer be a problem in the future.
“It’s no longer considered a state facility and it won’t be on the list of potential closures again due to the state budget,” Swan said.
Nixon also plans for a positive future for Cottonwood.
“We’re not going to back up on continuing to make sure we have solid care there and anything that we would do fiscally would be calibrated to make sure that outstanding care continues,” Nixon said.
In addition to the funding for Cottonwood, Nixon announced the release of $143.6 million for schools in Missouri, including $258,697 for Cape Girardeau Public Schools. The funding included more than $43,000,000 for public colleges and universities and more than $100,000,000 for K-12.
“I appreciate the legislative help in laying out a priority of public education,” Nixon said.
Schools in Missouri increased its performance score by more than 56 percent, while schools in Cape Girardeau increased its scoring on the Annual Performance Report by 14 percent from 2013-2014.
“We’ve got more work to go. We’ve got to meet our obligation financially by fully funding the foundation formula,” Nixon said. “We need to get full involvement of that new testing program so that we can see where we’re standing. Across the state though, ACT scores, which more kids are taking, went up two-tenths putting us once again well above the national average. Our kids are working hard, we just need to make sure that our educators have the resources and abilities to get technology and smaller class sizes.”