Tuesday, August 10, 1999
Social need answered at Talbert
Agency keeps adding services
BY ANNE MICHAUD
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Neil Tilow was hired at Talbert House at age 21 and worked his way up to director of an agency that now spends $24 million a year.
(Glenn Hartong photo)
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Talbert House, a fast-growing private social service agency, is finding that 1960s philosophy works just fine in the 1990s.
The organization has recently taken over two mental health agencies, runs a minimum-security jail in Warren County and backs up Hamilton County's successful drug court with anti-addiction programs.
It is headquartered in basement offices in a tired section of Walnut Hills, shunning status symbols '60s-style, and saving money a la 1999. Its origins are in community care, rather than big institutions, an idea that criminal justice experts have embraced during this decade.
Its director, Neil Tilow, arrived in 1974 for his first interview as a Talbert House counselor in flip-flops, a T-shirt and shoulder-length hair.
Like many 1960s-style idealists, Mr. Tilow has traveled from a desire to tear down The System to a belief that one can work within it.
“I found out that what Talbert House can do is help address tough social problems,” said Mr. Tilow, who took the director's job in 1982 at age 29.
Talbert House is one of dozens of private, non-profit agencies in southwestern Ohio that carry out government functions by contract. Among the largest, Talbert House spent $24 million in tax dollars last year under the supervision of a 38-member board.
The agency has grown steadily, but it blossomed in the 1990s, growing from a $5 million budget in 1990.
Last year, 17,114 people entered Talbert House programs to serve time and for help with chemical dependency, drunken driving, suicide prevention, family violence, sexual abuse and failed child support arrangements.
High-quality programs are one reason Talbert House is growing. Jill Goldhart, a deputy director with the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, said, “They are among the outstanding programs we have in Ohio, which is why Ohio is known nationally.”
Another reason for Talbert House's growth is society's desire to tackle one social problem after another, Mr. Tilow said. Direction comes from the schools, welfare system, courts and corrections.
“They tell us the problems they're having, and we try to come up with solutions,” he said.
A recent problem is cost-cutting in mental health. The Hamilton County Community Mental Health Board has been warning the nearly 40 agencies it funds that leaner times are coming, said Vincent Evers, board vice president.
Since January, two mental health agencies have become Talbert House subsidiaries, West by Northwest and Mental Health East, saving a projected $206,000 in administration costs. The affiliations made Talbert House the largest provider of mental health services in Hamilton County.
“We felt Talbert House had a lot to offer,” said Tom Palmer, chief executive of Mental Health East. “There are some efficiencies that can be had because of their sheer size.”
Several more mental health agencies have approached Talbert House about affiliating, said Dick Weiland, a board member for 22 years.
“The wave of the future is bringing more groups together,” he said. “I don't know at what point we'll stop.”
Mr. Tilow said two guidelines underlie Talbert House's growth:
• An affiliation must save administrative costs and redirect the money to patient care.
• New programs must add something clients need.
For example, the Mental Health East affiliation brought psychological services for adolescents already in Talbert House programs for substance abuse.
One young man in such a program is Mike, 17, of Butler County. He is serving 90 days for stealing from his mother's bank account by using her automated-teller machine card. Behind the theft was a growing drug use: marijuana, LSD and cocaine.
Mike, who did not want his last name published, said the counseling in his program, Alternatives, has helped him see errors in his thinking that led to crime.
“I've learned a lot about myself and the way I hurt others,” he said. The program “has helped me see what I did to my family and has given me a second chance.”
Talbert House was formed in 1964 when a group of private citizens met to talk about helping ex-convicts move back into society. They formed a board of 18 members, raised $10,000 through donations and opened a halfway house the following year in the West End.
They named the house for Ernest Talbert, a University of Cincinnati sociology professor who did not believe people belonged in institutions, but should be cared for in their communities.
Two women in a halfway house on a shady Evanston street attest to the benefits of community-based programs.
One woman, who wanted to be identified only by the initial R, is serving six months for stealing from the federal government. She can work days doing data entry and return to the halfway house at night.
“I've learned to appreciate everything I have and not take things for granted,” R said.
Another woman, Brenda, served 30 days in the justice center on a drug charge before stepping down to the halfway house. The counseling is improving her outlook, said Brenda, who wore her hair up and had polished her nails.
“I feel really good about myself,” she said.
From its early days, Talbert House began broadening its mission almost immediately, Mr. Tilow said. Founders envisioned counseling for the former inmates; they soon learned the men had drug problems and emotional issues, and they needed jobs.
In the 1970s, the agency added drug and alcohol treatment services and extended services to women and adolescents. In the 1980s, Talbert House expanded into chemical dependency treatment, parenting and case management.
In 1995, the agency won the con tract to run the Community Correction Center of Butler, Clermont and Warren counties, one of a new breed of minimum-security jails intended to relieve crowding in the state prison system by incarcerating nonviolent felons in their home counties.
The same year, Talbert House began providing anti-addiction programs in cooperation with Hamilton County's drug court, an intensive, long-term treatment and counseling program that's offered as an alternative to jail.
Abdul Deen, now 50, had served three prison terms by the time he ended up in drug court. The Pleasant Ridge man now counsels others in Talbert House's DUI program.
Celebrating four years of being clean, Mr. Deen revels in the idea that his college-age daughter can bring her friends home now.
“I owe a lot to drug court,” he said. “I was able to actually face myself and come to grips.”
In the business of changing lives, Talbert House is testing pilot programs to encourage new fathers to pay child support and to identify troubled kids by placing counselors in Clifton School this fall.
“We've seen a lot of progress made,” Mr. Tilow said. “We really feel we're making a difference in the community.”
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