WOMEN'S CENTER TO BE SET UP

CAPE GIRARDEAU -- A newly funded women's treatment center might purchase the building that formerly housed WISER, Inc.

The Missouri Department of Mental Health's Division of Alcohol and Drug Abuse has awarded an $880,000 contract to the Family Counseling Center of Cape Girardeau. The money will be used to operate an alcohol and drug abuse treatment facility for women here.

The contract is one of the first awarded under a new Comprehensive Substance Treatment and Rehabilitation program (CSTAR) designed by the department.

Myra Callahan, a Family Counseling Center official, said the center plans to begin offering out-patient services under the CSTAR program in July. Center officials hope that a residential-care facility can be opened by July 1992.

The organization already has a counseling center in Cape Girardeau at 170 Mt. Auburn Road.

Callahan said the CSTAR program will allow the center to provide services similar to those that had been offered at WISER. WISER closed its doors last August following months of financial difficulties.

WISER, an acronym for Women's Information Service, offered residential and outpatient drug- and alcohol-rehabilitation programs. As with that program, Callahan said the Family Counseling Center will concentrate on the treatment of substance abuse by women.

But she said the CSTAR program is designed to meet Medicaid funding requirements, which should help secure its financing. The program also will offer intermediate out-patient care, previously not available at WISER.

"Other than that, we're very similar to WISER," Callahan said. "We're everything that WISER was in terms of programming, but we will have a little more opportunity to provide additional services to patients that WISER was not funded for in the past."

CSTAR provides a range of long-term treatment services, including drug rehabilitation services, educational programs for women, a protective setting for children and "case-management" to help meet clients' medical and social needs.

Callahan said that if the former WISER building, opened in 1988, meets the needs of the CSTAR program, the center likely will purchase the facility.

"When we bid on the contract, we proposed that building as a possibility," Callahan said. "Right now our immediate plan is to go over the program with the architect to see if that building will meet the program standards.

"If we did go with new construction, we'd be looking at trying to get started by September at the latest."

Callahan said the center will serve about 220 persons during the first year with three levels of treatment.

"One level, the primary recovery level, has a supportive residential component to it," she said. "That's basically beds for 16 women and 10 children.

"That level does not require that woman stay overnight. It's more of a day-treatment type of programming with many going home at night. But if they don't have an environment that's safe to go home to, we will give them a spot."

She said the center also will provide outpatient treatment for up to 50 women. A new facet of the program is an intermediate treatment level for weekly or twice-weekly counseling sessions.

"In the past, it's been either out-patients, and then it went all the way to the other end of the continuum for residential treatment," Callahan said.

The center's focus on substance abuse treatment will set it apart from services offered by Safehouse for Women, Inc., she said. Safehouse was formed last year to provide shelter for women and children who are victims of domestic violence.

Bettie Knoll, a member of the Safehouse Board of Directors, said she didn't think the two organizations are competing.

"The thing that they're doing is alcohol and drug abuse. Ours is strictly a women's shelter. I think we want to make sure as a safe house for women, we should be just that a safe place for women victims of domestic abuse, and their children and we don't want to get into the treatment end of it."

Knoll said the group doesn't oppose another program "as long as it's separated and the public knows the difference."

Callahan said the only shelter services the new center would provide for women would be when domestic violence is related to alcohol and drug abuse problems.

"People who have studied it have found that people sometimes fall through the gaps," she said. "We need people to work on other related issues and this program does have that component with it. We will have a facility and there will be an overnight environment."

Another component of CSTAR is a supportive housing program that provides housing assistance for needy patients for up to six months after their discharge.

Callahan said Medicaid supplements could add 30 to 40 percent to the annual $880,000 state contract. The 10-year contract is renewable each year.

Callahan said the center likely will employ about 30 people, including professional counselors and psychiatrists.

Linda Thomasson, a former WISER official, will be the program director in Cape Girardeau and other former WISER employees likely will be hired, Callahan said.

"I think part of the reason that we were able to get this new contract is, with the WISER facility being in Cape, the (Missouri Department of Mental Health) was very conscious to make sure those services stayed in Cape Girardeau," Callahan said. "So we feel very good about that."

The Family Counseling Center has been in operation since 1976, with treatment centers throughout the Bootheel region of Southeast Missouri.