Juvenile facility seeks more accurate name
Published 5:00 am Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Later this year, the Mississippi Juvenile RehabilitationFacility will cease to exist, but in name only.
Under the authority of a new state law that went into effect atthe start of this month, JRF plans to put together a committee oflocal government and business leaders to assist in renaming thefacility.
Facility Director Regina Terry said the current name of thefacility causes misconceptions, leading people to believe JRFhouses troubled children – juvenile delinquents – when it actuallyis a major treatment center for mentally disabled teenagers.
“Personally, as the director who has been here since thefacility opened 10 years ago, I have never liked the name,” Terrysaid. “People automatically associate the word ‘juvenile’ with’delinquent,’ and we’ve had a stigma the whole time.”
Rather than serving as a juvenile penitentiary for youthfuloffenders, the facility is actually home to around 40 adolescentswho range in age from 13 to 21 and suffer various forms of mentalretardation.
Terry said JRF employs a wide range of therapists and medicalpersonnel to teach its clients basic living skills in its in-houseschool. The ultimate goal of JRF is to return its clients to theirlocal schools and communities.
Terry said the approximately 90 staff members of JRF have mademany attempts to correct the misconception that the facility housestroubled youth – an erroneous belief shared widely by not only thepeople of Brookhaven and Lincoln County, but by people from aroundthe state.
“We do have local churches and others involved who know us andknow what we do,” she said. “We want people to know that we want tobe a part of this community; want our clients to be a part of thiscommunity. But I guarantee you that you could go out and do a polland find people who didn’t know we existed – or what we really do -and we’ve been in operation for 10 years.”
Beginning in August, after the facility’s July events havepassed, JRF will begin putting together the committee – which willconsist of leaders like city aldermen, county supervisors, membersof the chamber of commerce and area residents – that will find theperfect name.
“We want everyone to be involved in coming up with some names,”Terry said. “It’s our intent to let the people we do business with,the people in the community whom we deal with daily, to be a partof our name change.”
Terry said possible names would be run by Mississippi Departmentof Mental Health Executive Director Ed LeGrand, who will then takethe tentative titles to the department’s board forconsideration.
Terry said JRF would likely be joined by a few of its 15 sisterfacilities statewide, many of which have long sought new names butunable to do so under state guidelines. But now those guidelineshave been amended, and the name hunt is “wide open,” she said,thanks to a little bill put forth in the Mississippi House ofRepresentatives by one of the Legislature’s newly electedmembers.
District 92 Rep. Becky Currie, R-Brookhaven, was also a victimof misconception. She thought the steely curl at the top of JRF’sperimeter fence was razor wire (it’s not), meant to keep in youngtroublemakers rather than to keep the challenged children fromwandering into dangerous, high-traffic areas around Highway 51. Hereducation on the facility’s mission came last year during acampaign stop.
“I walked in and saw the kids who live there; saw that they wereall disabled,” Currie said. “I was a little surprised andembarrassed that I didn’t know.”
Currie said she has worked toward keeping a good relationshipwith JRF since her revelation, and so far she has delivered. Terryexplained the dilemma of the facility’s name and the challenges ofchanging it, and Currie promised to try to pass legislation toenable the change if she were elected.
Gov. Haley Barbour approved Currie’s creation -House Bill 1347 -on May 9. It went into effect as law on July 1.
“I was very pleased when the governor signed my bill,” Curriesaid. “It did a lot for my heart to be able to help JRF and itskids. I’m afraid the people of Brookhaven may have made the samemistake I did, and I hope they will get more involved with thefacility if they know.”
Currie also attempted to make another change for JRF and itssister facilities, one that would likely go unnoticed in the publiceye but would make a huge difference for the families of childrentreated at such facilities.
Through HB 1347 and negotiations with the Mississippi StateDepartment of Health, Currie is seeking to allow the facilities’clients to be covered under Medicaid. She said feedback from thedepartment was positive, but no action has yet been approved on thematter.
“JRF doesn’t have a license to do that,” Currie said. “Theycan’t charge a child’s medicine to Medicaid, and almost every oneof their children is on Medicaid.”
Terry said JRF is not a Medicaid-approved facility, and all itschildren lose their Medicaid coverage when they are admitted. As aresult, JRF is operated entirely on general funding.
“We pay for everything with your tax dollars and mine,” shesaid. “And when the state needs to cut somewhere when times arehard, like they are now, you know where they cut – generalfunds.”
Terry said if JRF were licensed as an intermediate care facilityfor the mentally retarded it would need only matching money fromthe state to operate. Such a licensing could cut the facility’soperational costs by 75 percent.
“If nothing else, our children could keep their Medicaid cardsand pay for their physicians and medication – pretty much all thesekids are on medicine,” Terry said. “If this were approved, it wouldhelp out big time.”