By Evan Nemeroff and Paul Shapiro
The Gateway Continuing Day Treatment Center, which was established in 1973, provides supportive and therapeutic care for adults returning to the community after psychiatric hospitalizations and adults who would benefit from a structured experience to prevent hospitalization. Gateway was designed to encourage individuals to integrate themselves back into family and community life.
Herb Ruben, executive director of the Peninsula Counseling Center, said the 66 individuals that participate in the Gateway will continue to have a place to visit to get their treatment, but the program’s schedule and hours of operation will change. “The Gateway program is not being closed, rather it’s being restructured and reconfigured so that all the individuals in the program and other individuals in the future will still be able to get a full range of needed services,” Ruben said.
Gateway offers a friendly, non-threatening atmosphere where members participate in structured activities and socialization, as well as individual and group psychotherapy. Group activities include exercise, photography, cooking, gardening, arts and crafts, poetry, music, assertiveness training, current events and discussion groups regarding men's and women's issues and issues of employment. Specific interest groups are created in response to members’ needs.
The Gateway program, housed at 108 Franklin Place in Woodmere, is currently opened five days a week from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. According to Ruben, the state is looking to limit the number of Gateway day visits to 156 a year, which is equivalent to only three days a week. The hours of operation for the program will also be cut from five a day down to four.
Besides a new schedule and different hours, the current building lease expires on May 31. Verizon, which owns the building, has indicated that they are willing to re-negotiate a new lease with PCC. Ruben said that the PCC is looking for a new site for the program, but explained that the state cuts also make it hard to stay at the current site.
Even though a new building has not yet been found, Peninsula Counseling Center is hopeful to find another facility in the Five Towns. “We are in the process of looking for a site and I am confident we will have one shortly,” Ruben said. “I don’t want to see those individuals out on the street because they have nowhere to go during the day. I want them to know they have a place to go during the day, like they do now at the 108 Franklin Place site.”
This transition is set to occur on June 1 with the Gateway program being supplemented with the Meeting Place Clubhouse, The Clubhouse program is opened from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and four evenings a week and is 100 percent funded from the state and county, so it does not face the same issues as Gateway.
The Meeting Place Clubhouse is a social and recreational program providing adults recovering from psychiatric illness with activities and programs to develop the strength and confidence necessary to integrate more successfully into the community. The Clubhouse is open to adults 18 years and older who need support, skills and socialization opportunities during evenings and weekends. These include people who may already participate in PCC’s other treatment programs, such as Gateway.
Ernest Dixon, the unit director of Gateway, said it has been facing an uphill battle for many years. “We’ve been taking hits for a long time,” Dixon said. “There have been waves and waves of cuts over the years. Other programs have shut down because they couldn’t survive financially. We’re one of the last ones standing. There may be two or three more left in Nassau County and that?s a shame.”
In 2007, the Gateway program lost $165,000 in operating costs and $58,000 in 2008. With the state coming down with new regulations in 2009 that would reduce Medicaid reimbursement rates by five percent, Gateway is looking at losing over $100,000. Ruben explained that 85 to 90 percent of the individuals in the program are on Medicaid.
Dixon understood that with the upcoming state cuts, changes were inevitable with Gateway. “The operative word is reconfiguration, but for all intensive purposes the way it’s configured as a full-day treatment program is changing as of May 31,” Dixon said. “What’s going to be offered is basically, people are going to be approved with verbal therapy groups. In addition, they will be assigned to therapists in the main office and will be a continuation of follow-up with a psychologist.”
Tonya Hollister, one of the 66 clients of the Gateway program, doesn’t know where she would be without the Gateway program. “After six months of being in the program, I am stable and I am taking my medication which causes me not to have anymore outbursts,” Hollister said. “I always thought that the hospital was a place to run to, but now I feel like I have hope with gateway. They say clients are strength in numbers and I believe that. I can’t imagine where I’d be without them.”
Dixon is optimistic that the transition process will go smoothly for all of the clients. “We assured them that no one is going to leave this building without having a plan intact and we hope to have that in place before May 31,” Dixon said. “Before May 31, every single client in the Gateway treatment program will meet with their current assigned therapist and will work out a plan of transition. Every client will have the right to seek services where they chose and that can be within or outside the Peninsula Counseling Center. It’s going to be a more than adequate clinical plan for people to transition to the new program.”
Comments about this story? Enemeroff@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 210.
