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A New Era for the Glen Dale Center

Sunrise Children’s Services celebrated a remarkable day last week by opening the doors of our brand-new Glen Dale Center in Elizabethtown. Our guests for the ribbon-cutting ceremony – public officials, community members and Sunrise supporters – filled the large gymnasium for the ceremony. Afterward, they surveyed the classrooms where the teenage girls in the program will attend school, enjoyed refreshments in the dining area where they will eat their meals and checked out their living quarters. We decorated the interior with bright colors and motivational messages that we hope will make the girls feel safe and comfortable. Everything is under one roof so that our staff can work more efficiently with the girls.

Program Director Joseph Spinale, who has been overseeing the Glen Dale Center on the original campus that opened in 1915, told the audience that his staff was eagerly anticipating moving into the building. His staff members have become experts in building relationships with child victims of trauma. He pointed out that giving the girls food, clothing and shelter is not enough – that care must be coupled with individualized attention that helps them overcome the pain in their pasts.

Dr. Bill Mackey, president of the Kentucky Baptist Convention, also shared his thoughts on the new building before offering a prayer of dedication. Just as no building can contain the presence of God, he said, the Glen Dale Center won’t be able to contain the vast impact of changed lives.

With the opening of the new Glen Dale Center, I feel Sunrise can put a period behind the years-long endeavor to relocate our two oldest campuses in order to provide the best care possible for today’s hurting children. But at the same time, this is just the beginning of great things to come at the Glen Dale Center.

 

The Glen Dale Center sits on 24 acres in Elizabethtown.

 

I performed the official ribbon cutting. With me are (left to right) Bill Price, Sunrise's chairman of the board; Karen Richardson, vice president for marketing and advancement; Elizabethtown Mayor David Willmoth; Beverly Hite, Sunrise's vice president for residential and health services; Barry Mitchell, vice president for finance and administration; and our architect, Gary Scott.

 

We will have room for up to 20 teenage girls.

 

One of our messages to the girls: live well, laugh often, love much.

The Completion of our Campus Relocation Project

This Friday, Sunrise Children’s Services is celebrating the dedication of a new building for our Glen Dale Center. Years of work have gone into making this event happen – drawing up the plans for the building, breaking ground at the site in Elizabethtown in November 2007, and finally, completing construction this month.

The new Glen Dale Center replaces our oldest campus in rural Hardin County. Beginning in 1915, Glen Dale was home to hundreds of orphans. Alumni still gather each year to reunite and fondly remember their years together at Glen Dale.

But in order to best serve the teenage girls who come to our Glen Dale Center today, we must provide them with a facility that meets all their needs under one roof. The girls will eat, sleep, attend school and enjoy recreation at the new building. We believe this environment will be a sanctuary where their hurting can turn to healing.

The opening of the new Glen Dale Center marks the completion of a multi-phase campus relocation project. In 2002, Sunrise’s leaders and board of directors decided that the campuses for Glen Dale and Spring Meadows, which had served hundreds of orphans on a large campus in eastern Louisville since 1950, had outlived their usefulness. There were multiple buildings on the campuses, many of which were no longer being used. In addition, the agency’s central administrative departments were not all housed in the same building.

In spring 2006, the new Spring Meadows Center and neighboring Ministry Support Center opened in Mt. Washington. In the three years since then, we have witnessed the benefits of providing care to 18 teenage boys in a home-like setting. These children have been so hurt by their families that they require intense care and supervision to help them heal. A self-contained program in one building provides the most secure, efficient and healthy environment for our kids and staff.

When we cut the ribbon in front of the Glen Dale Center on Friday, we will be moving forward in providing the best care possible at our residential programs. In doing so, we will be honoring and extending the legacy that started 140 years ago when a group of women at Walnut Street Baptist Church in Louisville began caring for Civil War orphans. That legacy of compassion has made Sunrise Children’s Services what it is today.

Thank you to all those who made our campus relocation project become a reality. Please join us at our celebration on Friday from 3 to 5 p.m. at 1030 Commerce Drive in Elizabethtown. After a ceremony, you will be able to tour the new Glen Dale Center.  

State Makes Children in Out-of-Home Care a Priority

I am thrilled to report that Sunrise Children’s Services and the many other agencies who care for victims of child abuse and neglect in Kentucky have had their state funding restored to the rates they were at before devastating cuts began in February. For months, we spread the message about these unacceptable cuts to our supporters, and you responded by taking that message to our elected officials in Frankfort. They finally made children in out-of-home care a priority by using federal economic recovery money to restore our funding levels effective June 1 and keep them intact through the end of 2010.

We never should have been forced to advocate to this extent for our children, whose care is an essential responsibility of the state. We never should have had to worry about how we were going to pay the bills without compromising the care of the children. But we are extremely grateful to have our reimbursement rates back.

The front-page headline in The Courier-Journal read “Stimulus aid rescues child services.” That is exactly what happened – a rescue. Gov. Steve Beshear said he understood Sunrise and other providers had suffered under the cuts of up to 7 percent. Thank you to everyone who spoke up for our kids and brought about this rescue.

Where We Stand

We are nearing the end of National Child Abuse Prevention Month – a time of year when agencies like Sunrise who witness the devastating effects of child abuse shine a light on the problem and tell you what we’re doing about it.

The Need

Child abuse in Kentucky is on the rise, partly because families are under increasing pressure. In 2008, the number of children reported as abused or neglected was 88,292. That’s up from 84,451 in 2007 and 66,572 in 2006. Of last year’s reports, 72 percent were for neglect, 21 percent were for physical abuse and 6 percent were for sexual abuse. Click here to view graphs done by Prevent Child Abuse Kentucky that illustrate these numbers very clearly.

The result of these reports is that about 7,000 Kentucky children are staying in out-of-home care today – foster homes or residential facilities. Sunrise Children’s Services takes care of as many as 400 of these kids at a time.

I wrote extensively over the winter about Kentucky’s budget problems and the decision by the state to reduce the reimbursement rates paid to Sunrise and similar agencies that care for these kids. Thank you to everyone who wrote or called our elected officials on behalf of our kids. Unfortunately, the legislature failed to take action to restore our rates before ending the session in March. Sunrise and other children’s advocates are continuing to make every effort to push for the restoration of our funding with the governor and other state officials. In the meantime, please remember that any gift you can make to Sunrise will help us weather this financial strain. We will keeping caring for the kids no matter what. Click here to donate now.

The Results

How does Sunrise prevent child abuse? First, we place victimized children in safe environments where they can heal physically and emotionally. We teach them how to respect themselves, never allowing someone to victimize them again. Second, we provide counseling and other services to struggling families and children in an effort to keep the kids in their homes and communities. Third, we recognize that we can break the cycle of child abuse by bringing healing to child abuse victims and setting them on the path to a healthy adult life. Otherwise, they will be more likely to hurt someone in the future. Sunrise accomplished much toward these ends in 2008.

Our 2008 annual report, which you can view online in our spring newsletter, shows that 1,735 lives were touched by our services. In addition to clients who benefited from our counseling and adoption services, that number includes more than 1,000 children in our 10 residential treatment centers and foster homes across the state. These kids received more than just the basics of food, clothing and shelter – many of them received more adult supervision and support in one year than previous years combined. They received attention to their medical, educational and spiritual needs. Sunrise is changing lives.

Think about one action you can take to prevent child abuse – then tell us about it here!