Clara Martin Center Celebrates
40 Years of Helping Vermonters
By Sandy Cooch

Clara Martin Center—which started in 1966 as Orange County Mental Health with a $2000 budget and a single staff member in a small Chelsea office—celebrated 40 years of helping people Nov. 9 at Lake Morey Inn in Fairlee.

Today, the Clara Martin Center has a $6.7-million budget and its staff offers a huge variety of services at multiple locations throughout its service area.

CMC’s major programs are:

• Services for children and families.

• School-based services, providing counseling for students with behavioral problems and substance abuse issues.

• Adult outpatient services, including emergency and walk-in services.

• Alcohol and other drug services for adults, offered at several sites and in collaboration with other agencies, including the Veterans Administration.

• Criminal justice services. Through a contract with Probation and Parole Division of the Corrections Department, CMC is providing "cognitive self-change" and substance abuse counseling to parolees and women inmates.

• "Community support services" for those who are chronically mentally ill, to assist them to live independently.

• The East Valley Academy, an alternative school in East Randolph.

• Safe Haven, a homeless shelter for the chronically mentally ill in Randolph, operated in partnership with Vermont Psychiatric Survivors.

Clara Martin helps around 3000 people every year, via an extensive network of services, most of which operate under the public radar, with little fanfare.

'Partners' Celebrated

Last month’s birthday party was as much a celebration of Clara Martin’s "community partners," as it was about the agency itself.

Those honored included long-serving staff members; the CMC board of directors; the Randolph Rotary, for its support of CMC programs; and two individuals, a parent and a landlord, who have been CMC partners for decades.

Receiving a special salute at the 40th anniversary event was Jack Cowdrey, a Randolph landlord, who has worked for years with the Clara Martin Center to provide housing to people, as the state moved to "de-institutionalize" its residential facilities. Through the years, Cowdrey has made special accommodations, including holding apartments open for someone CMC knew was in need, Chambers said this week.

Also acknowledged as a "community partner" was the Randolph Rotary, which provided some start-up funds for the East Valley Academy.

According to Chambers, Rotary has also provided scholarships for the academy’s summer program, and it annually provides funds for a holiday party at Safe Haven, on Highland Avenue in Randolph.

Staff Honored

"Staff anniversaries" were also celebrated at the Nov. 9 celebration, and topping the list was Joyce Fullam, a CMC employee for more than 20 years.

Saluted for 15 years were Rachel Emerson and Jena Trombly; for 10 years, Hill Anderson; and for five years, Tori Berry, Julie Bradshaw, Tom Breslin, Aida Busconi, Tony Folland, Mark Forgette, Howard Hood, Sienna Lamperelli, Shane Oakes, and Ralph Regione.

Also recognized was the CMC board of directors, who volunteer untold hours and serve as "the voice of the communities," Chambers said. Members are Dennis Brown, Arnold Spahn, and Ronald Schoolcraft, all of Randolph; Frank Roderick of Corinth; John Larson of Barnard; Tom Gerlach of Strafford; June Phillips of Braintree; and Brewster Martin of Chelsea.

The agency is named after Martin’s late wife, who was committed to bringing mental health services to rural Central Vermont.

Long Service

Spahn has served on the agency’s board for 30 of its 40 years. Over that time, he has watched the organization undergo major program changes and funding shifts.

In 1994, the same year the name was changed to Clara Martin Center, it moved into its new Main Street offices in Randolph. The agency’s commitment to relocating downtown was vital to the reconstruction of Main Street, following the 1992 fire that leveled the Ben Franklin and adjacent businesses.

Spahn this week noted the importance of annual appropriations from Orange County towns, totaling around $43,000 each year. Although these contributions represent a small portion of CMC’s total budget, they are the only funds the agency has to run its walk-in clinics for community members unable to pay for services. The bulk of the agency’s funding is from Medicaid.

Spahn said he is particularly proud of the way the Clara Martin Center has repeatedly been "willing and able to step in when there is a crisis in the community."

In the wake of tragic deaths, or other community trauma, CMC has quickly mobilized counseling services in schools, and community forums for affected towns.

Spahn is also proud of the way Chambers and her staff have worked to increase the number of ways and places that county residents can "access" mental health services.

Forty years after Orange County Mental Health opened in a small office in Chelsea, the Clara Martin Center has reëstablished a Chelsea site, thanks to an arrangement with the Chelsea Community Health Board..

"We believe in community-based mental health services," Spahn said. "You have to be where the people are."

Deberville Honored

Receiving a special accolade at the annual meeting of the Clara Martin Center was Joan Deberville of Washington, who took care of her schizophrenic son Allen at home for about 30 years—with support from the Clara Martin Center. Allen, who would have turned 56 this week, died in July.

Chronically mentally ill people consistently do better, long-term, if they can stay at home and in their communities, noted Clara Martin's executive director Linda Chambers this week.

People like Mrs. Deberville, Chambers added, have made it possible for Vermont to "de-institutionalize" the Brandon Training Center and the Vermont State Hospital.

For her part, Deberville credits the Clara Martin Center—and the doctor who urged her to call CMC—with allowing her son to have "a good life."

In a telephone interview with The Herald, Deberville said she had given up on agency help after her son had a disastrous stay at a residential treatment home in New Hampshire.

Deberville brought Allen home, and vowed he would never again be "taken away," but being at home was difficult. Allen, then in his 20s, "heard voices" and had trouble functioning on a day-to-day basis.

So, she turned to the Clara Martin Center, which accepted Allen into its Community Support Services program for the chronically mentally ill. Deberville agreed to bring him daily to Randolph for day programs and a new medication.

"They worked with him, and in less than a month he was beginning to be more like himself—he didn’t hear voices," Deberville said.

As time went on, Allen was able again to work on the Deberville farm with his brothers. CMC also provided support to his mother, including the option of having Allen spend some weekends in Randolph.

"It made a huge difference in his life," Deberville said of the services provided by CMC. "You couldn’t ask for a better agency."

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