Advocates say closing youth center would create void

State funding for the Regional Institute for Children and Adolescents in Cheltenham could be dropped as part of $300M in budget cuts

Legislative analysts targeted the Cheltenham center for closing in part because it is underutilized and the smallest of the three RICA facilities run by the state Mental Hygiene Administration, said MHA director Dr. Brian Hepburn.

But members of churches and area nonprofits who regularly donate time at the facility said the services have made a difference to the teenagers who attend.

‘‘Would I be one to rally to support them to keep the facility open? I would definitely be one to support them because the facility is needed,” said Jeff Wooten, the youth pastor at the Spirit of Faith Christian Center in Temple Hills and Brandywine.

‘‘When you talk about the life of a child being protected, being redirected, how do you put a price on that? Kids aren’t thinking about money and budgets. They just want to know that you care.”

Wooten said he has been going to the facility about once a month for the past five years along with other church members to play basketball with the teenagers living there and to give them counseling.

‘‘We just talk about choices. That about sums it up,” Wooten said.

The center currently has 12 live-in teenagers who are receiving psychiatric, medical, social and educational assistance. In the residential program, teenagers stay at RICA for an average of eight months.

There also is a day program run by the center and Prince George’s County Public Schools, where students in the school system go to the center for classes and psychiatric care.

Teenagers between the ages of 12 and 18 are referred to RICA through their schools, social services or the courts.

‘‘I’ve met a number of the kids, and they’re actually more serious about life,” said Lawrence Shaw of Upper Marlboro, who has been volunteering at the center since 1999 and recently joined the center’s citizens advisory board. ‘‘They just need to be kind of channeled a little better. They’re from some pretty tough areas.”

Shaw, a member of a local alumni chapter of the Omega Psi Phi fraternity, said he and other members run a professional development program at RICA. They go to the center once a month and coach teenagers on how to write a resume, do a job interview, dress professionally and more.

‘‘Thank goodness they have RICA, because if they didn’t, they’d end up next door at Cheltenham, with no therapy, in the lockdown mode,” said Shaw, referring to the Cheltenham Youth Facility, a nearby detention center for juveniles.

Other groups that regularly visit RICA include Southern Maryland Pets on Wheels, the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority and volunteers from Andrews Air Force Base, Shaw said.

The staff at RICA holds a volunteer appreciation event each year to recognize groups’ contributions to the center, said Michael Capps, director of Southern Maryland Pets on Wheels.

If the center closes, teenagers normally referred there would be sent to other private or public facilities, Hepburn said. Because the center would not close until the summer at the earliest, teenagers currently living at the facility would likely be discharged before then, and would not have to be transferred.

‘‘It would be an issue of new waves of individuals,” Hepburn said.

Wooten said he has noticed a trend toward moving troubled teenagers from large centers to smaller, more intimate settings.

‘‘I’m not concerned to the degree of the welfare of the kids,” Wooten said. ‘‘I know the facility is needed, but sometimes smaller group settings might be better for kids.”