COMMUNITY COUNSELING CENTER UNDERGOES NUMEROUS CHANGES OVER YEARS

Sister Virgilia Beikler worried for years over how to serve the area's mentally ill people without sending them to the state hospital in Farmington. As administrator of St. Francis Hospital, she knew there was a better way to treat them.

In the early 1970s, Sister Virgilia hired Louis Masterman to write a grant request for a mental health center in Cape Girardeau. He was successful, gaining $650,000 in federal money for the center.

Masterman went on to become the first director of mental health services at St. Francis in 1974. The hospital was on Good Hope Street then, and some of the nuns moved out of their little home across the parking lot so it could be turned into an office for Masterman and his administrative assistant, Nancy Renfrow.

Masterman and Renfrow started the office with a picnic table and two chairs. Renfrow got the first desk so she would have somewhere to put her typewriter.

Even after her death, Sister Virgilia's dream grew. Today the Community Counseling Center occupies a huge two-story building on South Silver Springs Road. Renfrow, now the director of administrative services, watched its progress over the last 20 years.

"At first we only had four or five counselors," Renfrow said. "Our inpatient unit was 10 beds locked off from the rest of the hospital. It was manned by a psychiatrist from St. Louis on the weekends, and local physicians helped out during the week."

Everyone took turns answering the crisis line back then, including Renfrow, whose background is in teaching. She remembered a call from a young girl who talked for a long time about how despondent she was. Just as Renfrow was about to offer advice, the girl happily announced her boyfriend was in the driveway and she had to hang up.

Other calls weren't so light-hearted, and Renfrow referred people to trained therapists.

The mental health unit moved with St. Francis to its new facility on Route K in 1976, but by 1984 it was time to open a separate facility with its own board of directors. The Community Counseling Center was born, and today is 20 years old.

Renfrow said a desire to help people helped her stick to her job for 20 years. During that time she saw many changes in treatment of mental illness and more acceptance of those who must live with it.

Mati Stone, director of clinical services for CCC, has worked at the center for 15 years. The changes are too many to list, she said, but she proudly pointed to CCC programs copied throughout the state.

"Even though we're a medium-sized center, we stay on the cutting edge of mental health service and staff training," Stone said.

The center currently is working on its Access Center, which will open in February and provide prompt care for people who call with mental health problems. Right now it may be weeks between a person's first call to the center and his first appointment with a therapist. With the Access Center, clients will be assessed and helped more quickly.

Other CCC programs include the Community Psychiatric Rehabilitation Center, which provides support, education and other rehabilitative services so that seriously mentally ill people can function in the community. The Family Preservation Program targets families at risk for having their children taken away and provides counseling for every member. The goal is to remove the risk of harm to the child instead of removing the child.

There are 121 people on the CCC staff, serving over 3,500 clients each year.

While CCC introduces more programs, less government money is available. The center relies on more local funding and its fee-for-service system.

Thanks to CCC, Stone said, those facing mental illness are more accepted in the communities where they live.

"There is currently an increase in private practices in Cape, and Community Counseling Center did a lot of the groundwork for that," she said. "The community mental health center movement across the country has taught people about mental illness and about available treatments. Communities have learned that mentally ill people do get better."

Even so, mental illness has a long way to go before it is placed on the level of physical illness. Stone said deeply ingrained feelings about mental illness -- that it reveals problems with a person's character -- still exist.

Barriers may be broken if therapists and physicians work together more closely, identifying mental illness before it takes over a patient's life. Early intervention lessens the cost of health care, too, Stone said.

Sue Floyd is an example of how close physician/therapist communication can work.

In 1986, Floyd experienced severe physical problems, and her doctor couldn't find causes. He referred her to a psychiatrist, who prescribed medication for her depression. The psychiatrist referred her to a therapist, who could take more time to listen to Floyd's problems.

Floyd went to CCC every two weeks for hourlong sessions. Progress was slow at first, but by 1992 most of the underlying causes of her depression were brought to the surface.

"My therapist at Community Counseling Center helped me release a lot of the emotions I had bottled up," Floyd said. "There were major traumas in my life that I was unable to realize on my own. Before therapy I was so lonely and didn't have any self-esteem. I helped everyone else and never helped myself."

Today Floyd is in therapy at CCC once a month for a half-hour session. She is president of the Depressive and Manic-Depressive Association of Southeast Missouri, and more of an advocate for mental health care than a client.