Cuyahoga County and family wellness nonprofit The Centers announced plans Wednesday for the new Cuyahoga County Child Wellness Campus.
County officials said the campus will provide a space for at-risk youth who need a range of health care services. Those services include medical, behavioral, mental health and trauma treatment.
"What this campus gives and what I was hoping as county executive when I came in, is to give this community a resource, a new front door ... for our kids that are experiencing trauma. It gives them the dignity of housing with the full panoply of services, not just the shelter," said Cuyahoga County Executive Chris Ronayne.
The Centers currently operates Cleveland Christian Home, an emergency childcare facility at W. 112th Street and Lorain Avenue on Cleveland’s West Side. That facility will be expanded to develop the Cuyahoga County Child Wellness Campus, which officials said will open in 2024.
Cuyahoga County Division of Children and Family Services social workers and childcare providers have called for action to address what they claim are unsafe working conditions at the county's Jane Edna Hunter Social Services building, where children who are unable to find foster families are housed. Workers there have said they face daily incidents of violence at the hands of children in their care. The building is located at E. 40th Street and Euclid Avenue.
Cuyahoga County Children and Family Services Director Jacqueline Fletcher previously said plans for a new facility were in the works during a rally organized by agency employees and their union in September.
"Safety of our kids, our community, our staff is paramount," Fletcher said Wednesday. "We have to ensure that no harm is coming to our kids, our staff or the community."
The announcement is a good first step, said Marquez Brown, Cleveland regional director of American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union, Ohio Council 8, which represents these workers.
"I'm very hopeful and very optimistic," he told Ideastream Public Media. "It gives an opportunity for the union to continue to have a seat at the table, to have a conversation about how this looks, how this how do we have worker input, how do we make sure that the end of the day that we are looking out for the best interests of not only the workers but for the clients as well."
To that end, Brown said he looks forward to learning more about the wellness campus plan and will sit down with Fletcher and David Merriman, director of the county's Department of Health and Human Services, to find out more.
"The devil's in the details," Brown said, adding he'd like to get more information on a number of fronts, including what type of staff the county wants to hire for the facility and whether transportation will be readily available to take children who are East Side residents to the new facility on the West Side of town.
The county recently approved Ronayne's budget plans for 2024 and 2025. That budget included funding for major staffing additions, including 40 new social workers for the Division of Children and Family Services, another 40 case workers for Cuyahoga Jobs and Family Services and 40 more correction officers for the county jail.
The coalition that is developing the wellness campus will request an initial $450,000 from the Cuyahoga County Board of Control this Monday to hire staff.
According to the county, the total capital cost for the center is $8 million. Cuyahoga County has raised $500,000 through a grant from the Cuyahoga County Board of Developmental Disabilities and The Centers has raised $100,000.
"We are exploring all options to close the gap," said county spokesperson Jennifer Ciaccia.
Ronayne added that plans for the new youth facility include 50 beds, educational resources, addiction treatment and recreational opportunities.
"We don't want kids to lose days in this journey. We want kids to be at pace with their peers," Ronayne said. "They're in a unique circumstance when the floor has temporarily fallen out of their lives. But we need to get them on firm footing and keep them at a pace with their education needs in their everyday life like any other kids."
