Flathead Valley families struggling with everything from divorce and abuse to typical parent-child conflict have a new resource to help them. It couldn’t have come at a better time.
“The need is surging, and the organizations that exist have waiting lists,” Eula Crippen, a licensed clinical professional counselor, said.
Intermountain, a Montana-based nonprofit children’s mental health agency, hopes to fill some of the gaps with its new Child and Family Psychological Center located in downtown Kalispell. The center has been accepting patients since April, but held its grand opening last week to officially launch the program.
The center offers assessment and traditional psychotherapy to children, adolescents, parents and families facing a wide range of psychological challenges. That includes everything from evaluations for families that have been separated by the courts or divorce custody cases to help for parents struggling to communicate with their teenager.
Crippen, a full-time clinician with the center, said the overarching goal is to approach each situation with a focus on the whole – addressing issues as a family unit, not as individuals. “It’s not unusual for any family to experience difficulties from time to time,” Crippen said. “We try to develop healthy, nurturing relationships for families and children to succeed.”
And if court cases are any indicator, more Flathead families seem to be encountering serious troubles.
In recent months, an unprecedented number of alleged child neglect or abuse cases have flooded the Flathead County District Court, stretching resources there and at child protection services thin. The court dealt with 36 such cases in the first quarter of 2009; in comparison, there were only 12 such cases during the first quarter of 2008 and 53 total last year.
“The need for additional assessment resources for young children and families placed a tremendous strain on the Department of Family Services, court-appointed social advocates, law enforcement and a host of other community professionals,” Jim FitzGerald, Intermountain’s executive director, said, adding that Intermountain plans to coordinate its center’s services with existing community providers.
In an effort to reach lower-income family, the psychological clinic offers its services on a sliding-fee scale. It also accepts Medicaid patients, a service lacking in the valley as many medical offices accept a limited number of such patients because the reimbursement is often significantly lower than other insurers.
“Most of the patients we’ve had so far are on Medicaid,” Crippen said. “It’s a population in need of services.”
The psychological center is the second program Intermountain has launched in the Flathead in just the past few months. In December, the nonprofit opened Providence Home, an emergency crisis shelter for children age infant to 12.
FitzGerald said the nonprofit has been working in the Flathead for several years, holding training sessions for family service providers and researching the needs of the community. “Both of these programs are areas from the community that we heard there was a need for,” he said.
With a license for eight children, Providence Home is already full.
In the case of both programs, FitzGerald said community donations were the linchpin needed to get them off the ground. More than a dozen area contractors donated services to complete the centers remodel, which included electrical, painting, soundproofing, carpentry and drywall.
Crippen is currently the center’s only full-time clinician, though organizers are actively searching for another and plan to add a third by summer.
She has worked with at-risk families and children for over 20 years, starting at Kalispell’s Child Development Center as a family support specialist and then returning to school to complete masters degrees in human development and clinical psychology. She is currently finishing up the last of her requirements for a doctorate in clinical psychology.
Crippen first became familiar with Intermountain as a practicum student during her first master’s program. She liked it so much she returned two years later for another practicum.
“I feel in love with the philosophy and treatment approach,” she said. “It’s an amazing way to reach families and children.”