Jubilee Park to 'make a real difference' in southern Dallas with new mental health services7/23/17 Ben Leal, CEO of Jubilee Park and Community Center, remembers when the center's neighborhood near Fair Park was known as "the military zone."
Back then, the police wouldn't come when called and Leal spent nearly every morning with volunteers in the Jubilee neighborhood cleaning alleys and streets filled with trash, used condoms and old dime bags for drugs.
But much has changed since the community center first opened its doors in 1997. Now, the corners have security cameras and crime has dropped 67 percent, according to tracking by the center.
And more change is on the way July 25, when The Old Church at Jubilee Park will begin hosting new mental health care services through a partnership with the community center and Jewish Family Service of Greater Dallas. The church is on Gurley Avenue, across the street from the community center.
For Leal and others who believe mental health services in South and southern Dallas have been lacking for years, the new programs — including family therapy, play therapy and individual counseling — are a chance "to make a real difference."
He noted that in Jubilee Park, 99 percent of children in the center's lengthy list of programming, from after-school programs to summer camp, qualify for free or reduced-price lunches. The average household income is just below $15,000.
"When you're growing up in poverty, you're already dealing with trauma and stressors in your life," Leal said. "These children are in need, and these families are in need of an outlet, someone to talk to, someone to speak out with. I think that's why it's so great that we have Jewish Family Service with us now."
For the children
Maria Andrande has lived in the Jubilee neighborhood for 20 years and thinks the new services will make a big difference.
"Our kids need a lot of help," she said in Spanish. "Their parents work, so they spend a lot of time alone and they don't have a person advising them."
Maria Andrande, who has lived in Jubilee, a neighborhood in Southern Dallas, for 20 years said she plans on getting mental health services being offered by Jubilee Park & Community Center(TyLisa C Johnson/Dallas Morning News)
Maria Andrande, who has lived in Jubilee, a neighborhood in Southern Dallas, for 20 years said she plans on getting mental health services being offered by Jubilee Park & Community Center
(TyLisa C Johnson/Dallas Morning News)
Andrande said she plans to seek help, too, to have someone outside of her family who will listen.
The new programming at the church will have two clinicians, both bilingual, and a psychiatrist, who will be able to provide prescriptions to clients.
In addition, clients will be able to receive individual counseling, diagnostic evaluation, family therapy, child play therapy and more.
Play therapy is specifically for children ages 3 to 12 who have difficulty verbalizing their emotions. This form of therapy lets kids use toys like words to play out their anxieties, fears, aggression and other emotions and thoughts, according to Gustavo Barcenas, one of the center's new therapists.
Making an impact
"There are lots of organizations that acknowledge that mental health is a significant issue. It's a bigger step to say not only do we acknowledge it, but we have the conviction to take action steps to make mental health services available," said Fleisher, who retired as CEO in March. "The results will prove themselves."
A grant for $162,000 paid for a part-time psychiatrist and two full-time clinicians to provide play therapy, diagnostic testing and counseling services.
The grant came from The Rees-Jones Foundation, an organization that has funded mental health services in Dallas since 2006.
Since it began, the foundation has awarded 167 grants totaling nearly $27 million to help improve mental health services in Dallas, according to Adrian Cook, the foundation's director of research and evaluations.
Jewish Family Service is providing staff to Jubilee through The Rees-Jones Foundation.
Terese Stevenson, the foundation's vice president of grants, said Jubilee is an example of how the foundation wants to provide "not just access to services, but access to high-quality services that are going to make an impact.
"We're very focused on ensuring that all children in our communities who are struggling with mental health issues have counseling and therapy. We see that there's such a large percentage of the population that have mental health issues and if those aren't addressed early they can obviously lead to some very negative consequences in the lives of young people."
The Foundation and Jewish Family Service wanted mental health services locations in southern Dallas, where mental health options are limited.
Ariela Goldstein, director of clinical services at Jewish Family Service, thinks "every community needs to have mental health services equally to medical services." She said that is because "whether it's poverty, life stressors, losses, special needs, you name it, you have to have that support."
Feeling understood
Another important factor in providing the services is making sure that the providers can relate to their clients. About 79 percent of the Jubilee community is Hispanic, so having therapists on board who speak Spanish will "let people feel heard and understood," said Nancy Hall, the new family therapist.
"Lots of times with trauma, the way we deal with it is we learn to experience it, we learn to tolerate it, and we accept it," she said. "We're just part of that wraparound model that is going to intercede for children, that is going to make a difference at an early age."
Barcenas, the play therapist at Jubilee, said that being culturally sensitive is an important part of mental health help. Stigma, he said, is already a deterrent for many ethnic communities, but bringing in people who "could understand more of the culture" will make long-term help more effective.
"A lot of clients actually don't come because of the language barrier," he said. "As a counselor, we need to be trained in how to provide culturally sensitive interventions."
CORRECTION, 11:30 a.m., July 25, 2017: An earlier version of this story incorrectly said that Michael Fleisher is the former CEO of Jubilee Park and Community Center. Fleisher is the former CEO of Jewish Family Service.
www.dallasnews.com/business/health-care/2017/07/22/jubilee-park-make-real-difference-southern-dallas-new-mental-health-services
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