MOUNT VERNON — Bids will go out soon for an expansion project that will double the square footage capability of the Children’s Resource Center on Coshocton Road.
Matthew Kurtz, director of Knox County Job & Family Services, told the commissioners on Thursday that bid requests should go out by today. He anticipates awarding the bids on Feb. 1.
The county owns the existing center and leases it to The Village Network/ Children’s Resource Center to operate. The center guarantees bed availability to the county, and the county pays for beds as it needs them. Kurtz says that’s more cost effective than to staff and run the entire facility.
“Their concentration is taking care of the child,” said Kurtz. “Our concentration is family abuse and families.”
Kurtz said the expanded space will not include additional beds but will allow the center to work more with mental health and trauma issues.
“As their operation has grown and reached out to do more within the community … they have needed more space for counselors, activity space and to do more work with trauma-informed care. What we get as a county, it helps us address trauma and the mental health needs of children in Knox County,” he told the commissioners.
The new building will be built to the front of the Children’s Resource Center and the side of Opportunity Knox. It will connect with the existing resource center via a breezeway.
“That’s an exciting project that we’ve got going coming out of the chute in 2018,” said Kurtz.
Also on tap for February is a move by some J&FS staff into new offices. Kurtz said administration and the fiscal and human resource departments will move into the county-owned building at 116 E. High St.
J&FS remodeled the building in 2007-08 with the intention of locating children services there. When the recession hit, J&FS downsized its staff through attrition and layoffs. The county leased the building to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.
“We think in that 10-year period we’ve pretty much grown back up to capacity,” said Kurtz. “[The move] frees up a wing here [at the service center] for us to think about how we are going to use that space. Children services has grown and child support expanded a little bit, too. If service needs continue to grow and state and federal funding continues to increase, we may need to see the public assistance department grow into new space.”
Commissioner Teresa Bemiller said the move into the county-owned building “follows the same philosophy that if we own buildings, we want to put county employees in them.”
Another area which J&FS will focus on in 2018 is Knox Area Transit. Kurtz said KAT’s current focus is geared more toward seniors and Medicaid-eligible individuals; the goal is to make it more attractive to “folks really trying to make it but who are at the lower end of the pay scale.” Part of that includes starting village routes so individuals can get from Centerburg, Danville, Fredericktown and Gambier to jobs in Mount Vernon or the industrial park.
Foster families continue to be a focus as well. Kurtz said that 10 more families are almost ready to accept children. The number of children in the custody of J&FS remains fairly steady at 100.
“The trend has now flattened out,” said Kurtz. “What wasn’t sustainable is continued growth.”
Kurtz said that J&FS is federally mandated to reunite children with their family within two years. In years past, when the issue was alcohol or marijuana, it wasn’t as difficult to attain that mandate because the individuals affected could still function to some degree.
“With opiates and meth, those aren’t that kind of drug. [Those individuals] are very often not functional,” said Kurtz. “Safety is much harder with opiates and meth; it takes a lot longer, recidivism rates are higher, future performance is hard to predict.”
Kurtz said that in that two-year time frame, the children’s childhood is ticking away. “It’s a real challenge, but it’s a challenge that’s important because that child deserves a childhood,” he said.
“Drug addiction takes a longer time to remediate. We used to remove kids because homes were dirty. It’s much easier to develop cleanliness habits than it is to get [parents] to abstain from meth or opiates,” he added. “That’s the challenge we have every day: to meet the needs with the funding we have.”
