Oregon Public Broadcasting

Trillium Family Services is the largest provider of mental health services for kids in Oregon, and it has announced major layoffs statewide.

Trillium takes care of the kids who used to live at the state hospital.  It’s cutting 20 percent of its staff and most of those layoffs take effect next week.

That means roughly 5000 of the 9000 kids Trillium treats will have to get care elsewhere or go without.  Allison Frost reports.

In a lot of ways, these kids shucking corn at this community garden are just any other kids. But 12-year-old Thomas, not his real name, and his friends have some problems. Problems that Trillium’s residential Parry Center is helping them with.

"I mean it’s a good time to take care of something and as the garden grows so does the gardener." - Thomas

Thomas: "Well, I’ve grown from this little kid who doesn’t, doesn’t stand anything he’s just running around all the time, to a nice calm persona like this."

Calm might be overstating it.

Thomas: "And I’ve been learning how to make friends, yeah it’s all because of the garden and Jenny."

But it’s evident, especially to horticultural therapist Jenny Bush, that the program is having an effect on the kids she sees.

Jenny Bush: "Yeah, it really connects them."

Kaiser Permanente sends its day patients and residential kids here, and all the kids who were living at the state hospital are now here.

Spokesman Colin Ware says there is a good reason for that.

Colin Ware: "We do see children with profound ADHD. We do see children with profound post traumatic stress syndrome from the environments that they are in. And we do see children that do have conditions that are psychotic in nature and might lead to something like schizophrenia in their adult life."

The non-profit agency has deep roots in the state. While Trillium itself was created less than 10 years ago when three different facilities merged, one of those -- the Parry Center for Children -- has been around since before Oregon statehood.

Like the Farm Home and the Waverly Children’s home, it began by caring for orphans. Now Trillium runs foster care programs around the state and treats kids with mental and behavior problems.

Kim Scott: "You know I think it’s highly interesting and highly frustrating."

Trillium CEO Kim Scott has worked in children’s mental health since 1979. He says it's not that hard to explain why Trillium had to layoff 20 percent of its staff.

Kim Scott: "There’s just not enough funding in terms of the many needs that Oregon’s children and families have."

He claims the state does not pay Trillium the amount it costs to care for kids.

The real financial problems came when the Children's Mental Health System Change Initiative of 2005 expanded the number of clients Trillium serves.

Spokesman Colin Ware says the changes simply did not pencil out.

Colin Ware: "Trillium has never served more children and yet we’ve also never lost more money. We served 9000 children in 2006 and 2007 and we lost $5 million in our operations."

Both Ware and CEO Kim Scott applaud the Initaitive's intent -- to get more kids out of residential facilities and into community care. But Scott says, the state failed to put up enough money.

Kim Scott: "These are all things that year after year, we’ve gone to the legislature, we’ve made this very clear to them and there’s been very little response."

Trillium is closing facilities in Bend, Corvallis and metro Portland. Spokesman Colin Ware says outpatient or community based programs will take the hit, but Trillium will try to help the most critical kids get care.

Money raised at the farmers' market goes to send Trillium kids to movies and OMSI.

Colin Ware: "Right now we’re working very hard to find care for those children, we have an ethical responsibility to do that and we will not stop taking care of them until we have found another place for them."

CEO Kim Scott says Trillium chose to restructure in a way that allows them to do what they do best: helping kids with the most severe kinds of mental illnesses -- those that require intensive day treatment and residential care.

Kim Scott: "We’re going to do whatever we have to do right now, to survive in this environment, to meet our mission and oh by the way, we continue to treat the most severely challenged children in the state."

The kids are selling the produce they’ve worked hard all year to grow. The money they make goes to send them to the movies and OMSI.

Thomas: "I love it, I couldn’t live without it. It’s just, I mean it’s a good time to take care of something and as the garden grows so does the gardener."