Woodlands closing in February

Jan. 24--After 28 years of providing substance abuse treatment for adolescents, Woodlands Treatment Center will shut down in late February.

The center, run by Young House Family Services, is a 20-bed residential facility that has served more than 1,100 youth the past 28 years. While a few of the center's 29 employees will be able to apply for other positions within Young House, the others will be out of a job.

Young House Family Services administrator Jack Escorcia said it is a painful but necessary closure.

"It's devastating. It's heartbreaking is what it is," he said. "You have a good quality staff that is there to help kids."

Eight adolescents staying at the center now will be transferred to other treatment centers, if possible.

Escorcia said the reason for the closure is purely financial.

"The state of Iowa has been reducing the number of youths being placed in residential facilities, and there has been a steady decline of referrals and placements at Woodlands over the past five years," he said. "Inadequate reimbursement for residential treatment, which falls woefully behind the rate of inflation, also contributed to this decision."

Escorcia said the treatment center has been in danger of closing since the number of referrals started dropping in 2009. There are only a handful of adolescent drug treatment centers in Iowa, and Young House relied on referrals from juvenile court officers across the state.

Woodlands used to operate at 90 percent capacity, but that has dropped down to about 65 percent in recent years. The lack of bodies decreased reimbursement from the state to the point where it no longer was financially feasible to keep the center open. Woodlands Treatment Center is a 24-hour-a-day operation, and that kind of overhead gets expensive.

"We hung on as long as we could," Escorcia said. "There's more emphasis on community-based services, and part of that is because of the expense."

Former Woodlands Treatment Center director Sandy Krell-Andre and current Young House counselor Julie Worden put the program together 28 years ago. Krell-Andre said she was devastated to learn the center would close.

"My thoughts are with the kids presently there and the staff that is losing their jobs. I think it's very sad," she said. "I'm really angry with the judges who are ignoring recommendations that kids need treatment, because they're told they can't spend money on it."

The idea for the center grew from a discussion between Young House and Alcohol and Drug Dependency Services of Southeast Iowa, and Young House founder Bob Reinke decided to take on the project.

Reinke also was saddened to hear the news, especially since Woodlands Treatment Center is the only such facility in southeast Iowa.

"It's kind of a sign of our times," he said. "(The state of Iowa) is closing all these residential services. I hope they (the state) know what they're doing."

Krell-Andre was pregnant with her youngest son when she and Worden prepared the center for its grand opening in March 1986. She missed the open house for area parole officers when she went into labor. Those memories forever will be tied to her work at the center she loved so much.

"We had 10 beds at first, all boys, and that was kind of the golden age of treatment," Krell-Andre said. "A young person in southeast Iowa could get treatment without insurance, without getting in trouble with the law."

After seeing other treatment centers in Iowa close, Krell-Andre wasn't surprised altogether to see the same fate befall Woodlands. She warned money saved in the short term by decreasing funding for such centers will pale in comparison to the cost of housing future prison inmates who might miss out on a chance to change their lives.

"We're taking the humanity out. When the state is in the black, we cut taxes for corporations and property taxes. When we're in the red, we cut services," she said.

Worden equally was devastated to hear about the closure, and spent nearly an hour talking to Krell-Andre about their time working at the center. Worden said the first boy admitted to treatment and the first to graduate from Woodlands now live drug-free lives.

"When you see how kids' lives have worked out, it's pretty awesome," Worden said.

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