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STATE OF GEORGIA
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DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

OFFICE OF THE STATE SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS

STATE OFFICE BUILDING

JACK P. NIX State Superintendent of Schools

ATLANTA 30334
November 1973

In its continuing effort to serve all children, the State of Georgia developed and implemented the Georgia Psychoeducational Center Network for Severely Emotionally Disturbed Children. This is a comprehensive delivery system of services to children, ages 0-14, who are severely emotionally disturbed or behaviorally disordered. During its first year of operation, beginning in July 1972, seven centers served more than 1,200 children. In addition, services are provided to the local school in which the child is enrolled and to the child's parents.
These centers have received tremendous support from interested citizens, parents, education and mental health professionals and the Georgia General Assembly because they serve as an alternative to institutionalization. It was only with this great spirit of cooperation that the network became a reality in Georgia. Through increased funding, fifteen centers are operated throughout the state this year, and twenty-four centers have been projected by July 1975 to cover the state.
This is truly a desperately needed service, and we give our sincere thanks to all those who helped make it possible.
rr ~t?Y1'ack P. Nix / State Superintendent of Schools

Copyright 1973
Prepared by the Technical Assistance Office Georgia Psychoeducational Center Network
698 N. Pope Street Athens, Georgia 30601
funded by Georgia Board of Education
and the U.S. Office of Education Bureau of Education for the Handicapped

This child's parents are deeply concerned over their son's ture and have consulted several child specialists who agree t he is handicapped by serious emotional disturbance. He simp foils to respond in any rational way _to his environment. Wit drawn, obviously out of touch with reality, his eyes wander aimlessly and he seldom seems to hear other people. Sometimes he sits and mimics, Over arid over again in a sing-song voice, a popular television commercial.
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Approximately one-half of one per cent of all Georgia's children are the victims of emotional or behavioral disturbances so severe they -cannot function normally in their environment.
BEHIND THIS SAD STATISTIC ARE 6,188 GEORGIA CHILDREN, UNDER AGE 14.

These children can be helped to become emotionally healthy, happy and productive people. The State of Georgia has recognized this fact and is one of the first in the nation to create a network of unique community facilities for the treatment of children who are severely emotionally or behaviorally disturbed.
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THE GEORGIA PSYCHOEDUCATIONAL CENTER NETWORK
The Georgia Psychoeducational Center Network is a statewide system of community-based centers, each of which provides psychological and educational services for severely emotionally or behaviorally disturbed children, from birth through fourteen years of age, and their families.
Initiated in 1972, the Network consists of centers in which mental health experts and educators pool their resources to solve the special problems of these seriously troubled children.
A Technical Assistance Office of the University of Georgia provides consultation services to the Network's centers. Housed at the Rutland Center in Athens, it provides help to other centers in the development of their treatment services, staff training programs, and program evaluation.
HOW IS THE NETWORK SUPPORTED?
The Georgia Psychoeducational Center Network is funded by the Georgia General Assembly through Georgia Department of Education, Special Education Program, and the Georgia Department of Human Resources, Division of Mental Health, in cooperation with local school systems and community mental health centers.
Each regional center serves the entire district in which it is located, with a board comprised of local mental health and public education officials, parents and other community people providing overall supervision and direction. A school district serves as fiscal agent but may subcontract with a community mental health center to administer all or part of the serVIces.
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GEORGIA PSYCHOEDUCATIONAL CENTER NETWORK .....
Gteen - Operational as of July 1, 1972 Blue - Operational as of July 1, 1973

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WHAT MAKES THE NETWORK UNIQUE?
*IT IS COMPREHENSIVE. Each child referred to a Psychoeducational
Center may receive a full range of services, including thorough diagnosis, treatment, periodic evaluation, and follow-up.
*IT IS A COOPERATIVE EFFORT by the mental health and teaching
professions, capitalizing on the benefits of a team utilizing psychologists, psychiatrists, educators, social workers and others.
*IT IS COMMUNITY-BASED and offers help to a group of children
who are usually excluded from schools and often isolated from friends and family. Instead of being in an institution, children remain with their families and receive the services they need in a Psychoeducational Center close to home. Usually they remain enrolled in regular school programs part-time while receiving help at a Psychoeducational Center.
*IT OFFERS ASSISTANCE TO PARENTS AND REGULAR SCHOOL TEACHERS who may influence and help disturbed children, but who
frequently need guidance in order to be effective.
*IT REACHES THE GEOGRAPHICALLY DISTANT COUNTIES by
a series of outpost or field centers, bringing psychoeducational services within thirty minutes of any child in Georgia.
IT IS WORKING, and its successes are being documented by a
network-wide evaluation system.
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Most centers use a process called Developmental Therapy in which treatment programs are conducted in small classes organized on four developmental stages. In the first stage children are extremely withdrawn and out of touch with their environment; they exhibit few individual and no group skills. The primary objective of stage one is to stimulate the child to respond to his surroundings with pleasure and trust. The teachertherapist gives each pupil unflagging attention and tries in every possible way to elicit a growing awareness of reality.
When a child is aware and responsive he is placed in a stage two class in which the child is guided not only to respond, but to respond appropriately. In stage two the development of individual skills and self-confidence is stressed, and children begin to learn that socially-sanctioned ways of getting what they want and need are more effective than old patterns of aggression or withdrawal.
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After learning individual skills, the child learns group participation.

In stage three, the focus is on the group and on interaction, sharing and

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cooperation among the children. Teacher expectations.begin to approach

normal limits. Many children are terminated from psychoeducational

classes after achieving stage three skills; they no longer need intensive

therapy.

Especially for older children, some continued additional therapy may be helpful. These youngsters are placed in stage four classes. They perform adequately in groups-behave well, follow directions, cooperate in class projects-but often have negative feelings about themselves and have not learned to make a meaningful emotional investment in their peers. The teacher serves as a counselor, and children share views and discuss with each other ways of solving problems. They learn to value others.
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Angela's mother, although somewhat apprehensive, was concerned about Angela and gave approval for testing and evaluation. During the conference, a social worker explained the center's program and objectives. The next step was a psychological, developmental and educational assessment of the child, carried out through testing and teacher-parent conferences, to pinpoint the exact nature and depth of her problem.
The center's diagnostic team discovered that Angela was an intelligent child, capable of good academic performance. But she also was severely disturbed emotionally and it was clear that without help she would almost certainly not progress in school and would eventually become too much for her family to manage. Extremely aggressive and hyperactive, lacking even rudimentary selfcontrol, she often erupted into frenzied rages that frightened children and adults alike. Angela also exhibited a constant suspicion of other people, sometimes even to the point of terror. She lived in a distorted and unreal world which her mother could not penetrate. Her future appeared bleak indeed.
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With testing' results in hand, center staff began to plan a program of psychoeducational therapy which would help to change Angela's behavior and restore her to sound emotional health. Such team progra~ planning is one of the most important keys to success in the psychoeducational network.
An individualized program of therapy is tailored for each child, spelling out specific goals and methods of therapy.
Behaving in a way appropriate for his age, developing adequate communication skills, getting along with other people, and succeeding in school work are prerequisites if a child is to enjoy good mental health.
After the diagnostic and planning phase, Angela was enrolled in a special psychoeducational class at the center for two hours a day, four days a week. For her and her five classmates, it seemed to be just another kindergarten class, sometimes fun and Sometimes frustrating. She didn't know, of course, that psychoeducational classes are an integral part of treatment offered through the network, in which teachers trained in the education of the emotionally disturbed use a battery of special management and teaching techniques to help their pupils become better adjusted. Nor did Angela know that during the next few months she would be reevaluated at five-week intervals and "promoted" from one class to another as she began to feel less anxious and confused and more sure of herself.

In mapping out Angela's program, the center staff decided that it was important for her to attend not only psychoeducational classes, but also regular kindergarten, where she could associate with desirable peer models and test out her new, more acceptahle patterns of behavior. Her regular teacher was anxious to help Angela but lacked skills in dealing with emotionally disturbed children and worried that Angela might disrupt class. The solution: her teacher was visited several times each week by psychoeducational center staff members who taught her ways to cope with special problems that might arise while Angela was attending both the center and kindergarten.
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Gradually, Angela began to relax with herself and others. She mastered development skills appropriate for her age. Her rages were fewer. After four ten-week terms at the center, she was terminated from psychoeducational classes and shortly afterwards entered first grade. There she did average academic work and exhibited considerable selfesteem and selfcontrol, only occasionally reverting to old behavior patterns. The psychoeducational staff followed her progress with interest, checking with her teacher and mother twice weekly for three weeks, then at occasional intervals. Such follow-through services are another part of each psychoeducational center's operation. Each child's progress is checked at three, six, and twelve month intervals-or more often, if necessary. After the child has been terminated from the center further consultation is always available for parents or teacher, including telephone assistance in crises.
Finally, Angela's file was closed. No longer disturbed, she had learned to handle the joys and woes of being six without any special assistance.
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WHAT ABOUT THE COST? Is the cost of community-based treatment :>f seriously emotionally disturbed children too high?

One alternatve to-the treatment offered through the com

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nUllity Psychoeducational Centers is hospitalization, a

~i ly; pensive method of dealing with the problem.

st hospital care may range from $3,100

060 or more per child per year.

RAST, NETWORK SERVICES NJls~~5;,S'1~N $1,080 PER CHILD PER
A OUT ONE-THIRD TO ONEH THE COST OF INSTITU ALIZATION.
...ommunity psychoeducational care, then, s a sound economic investment in the Euture of Georgia's most precious ~esource, its children.

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The Georgia Psychoeducational Center Network is dedicated to assisting children who share only one absolute common denominator: they are deeply troubled, severely handicapped, and they need the help that an enlightened society can provide.
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NOTES

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WHERE ARE WE GOING FROM HERE?
The goal is a truly statewide network, with the establishment of a center in each district of Georgia, so that every emotionally disturbed child can be assisted through an effective, comprehensive community-based program close to home.
An impressive beginning has been made. In the first nine months since the Georgia Psychoeducational Center Network's inception in July, 1972, more than 1200 children and their families received services in the network's first seven centers in Athens, Brunswick, Carrollton, Savannah, Thomasville, Valdosta, and Waycross. In addition, the preschool component of the Network's prototype, Rutland Center, in Athens, has been selected by the Bureau of Education for the Handicapped, U. S. Office of Education, as an exemplary program worthy of national dissemination.
Eight more community based centers, located in Americus, Dalton, Dublin, Gainesville, Macon, Milledgeville, Rome, and Waynesboro, began operating in July, 1973. THIS NETWORK OF 15 CENTERS, COVERING 113 COUNTIES WILL SERVE MORE THAN 3000 SEVERELY EMOTIONALLY OR BEHAVIORALLY DISTURBED CHILDREN AND THEIR FAMILIES BY THE END OF JULY, 1974.
There are still an estimated 2991 disturbed children in counties not presently being served. Nine additional centers are now projected to fulfill the Network's goal by 1975, making a psychoeducational center program available to all of Georgia's severely emotionally and behaviorally disturbed children.

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Script: Sharon Bailey Photos: Mike Windham THE PROJECT PRESENTED HEREIN WAS PERFOMED IN PART PURSUANT TO A GRANT FROM THE U.S. OFFICE OF EDUCATION, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND WELFARE. HOWEVER, THE OPINIONS EXPRESSED HEREIN DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE POSITION OR POLICY OF THE U.S. OFFICE OF EDUCATION, AND NO OFFICIAL ENDORSEMENT BY THE U.S. OFFICE OF EDUCATION SHOULD BE INFERRED.