Let’s Talk Newton – Focuss Executive Director Darnell Loatman and Therapy House Executive Director Devin Robertson

Welcome to today's Let's Talk Newton powered by the Knoxville Raceway. I'm Randy Van

and today we're going to be talking to Garnel Lothman. He's the executive director of Focus

as well as Devon Robinson, executive director of Therapy House. They are working to get

a location in Newton. They've been serving youth in Pope County and lately in Jasper County as well.

$50,000 away now from possibly getting a location here in Newton thanks to a recent donation.

You know, talk about their services, what they have been offering in Jasper County and how they

think that they'd be better if they had a facility here to help them operate out of. So we'll

start off talking to Garnel and just to talk a little bit about what you guys do and have been

doing for us in youth here in Jasper County. Right, right. Well, we've been working with the

youth since 2015. And so now on the crisis side of things, it's just picked up everywhere.

And for Pope County, it's working. We'll have that observation, some of you've

observations in it. One of the first ones in Iowa that's just youth only. So that becomes

important because a lot of oftentimes we leave the youth out in their future then we need to make

sure we have them in. As far as Jasper County, the cause for us has picked up.

And I think Stigma plays a part. I think it's easy to call us because it's nothing here for you.

I'm not sure if the police department even have some crisis they can call to help you for

whatever the case may be. But working out here, it just seemed like Stigma. You know, you don't want

people to think whatever they want to think about you. So that would be part of us educating

the community as well. And what you offer is like just a situation comes up. You remove the youth

from that for a while. Right. So what we offer is what happened is the situation of rise,

we can get there immediately, right? 24, 7, 7 days a week doesn't shut down. We'll be able to get

to them immediately and give them immediate services, right? So we can pull them in due de-escalation,

have them immediately with a therapist, give me some crisis worker, social workers,

they'll continue on care around them offering them be his, you know, after they be, just continue

with those things. More importantly, it's the de-escalation part. So we can hold them up to 23 hours.

Okay. You know what I mean? In process, we'll build some coping skills plans. And if we say okay,

they're ready to go back on, you know, we can send them home with a plant and not just send them

home with nothing. Okay. So we can, they can utilize our therapist so they maybe they have a therapist

already. But we still want to be able to give them the resources they need. And we set down with

your care's team so it seemed like they have some resources too. But I'm absolutely sure we're

to miss and part of this. And after 23 hours that we said the kid cannot de-escalate as much

and need more time, then we were, for an example, we have a partnership where he's to still so we

can get him there to do five more days. And that helps the system, though, that helps the police

department, that helps the hospital, that just helps everybody. You know, we can take him from here

down there, but you have to come get him once we're done. Yeah. So to me, it's just make better

sense to be here in Jasper County and support the city and the county. The more importantly,

the youth and not make it harder and it has to be for families to come back down there and get

him and all those type of things. Let's talk a little bit to Devon here, Director of Therapy

House, a veteran owned and operated facility. What do you folks do there? Well, we actually are

the brother part of the continuum of care with with focus. We're making sure that after those kids

age out of their program at 17, they have a place to go. When you're dealing with mental health,

we have to make sure that the mental health status or the quality of life doesn't stop at 17,

it continues after that. And we don't want the kids after 17 to just fall victim to any trauma

or anything else that they may endure. We want them to have a place that they can come to because

we will establish that while they're 17 and under through focus. And so that way it's kind of

like a warm handoff. They already be for me with us and understanding so it'll be kind of just

a even handoff to us. But that's why we're trying to come here. I'm from the rural part.

I grew up on the small farm myself, so I understand the dynamics of being in rural areas, how those

services, these services that we're bringing are needed. And we just want to make sure that we

bring some positive to the community that can help, like I always say, do real the trainings that

may be coming. And being non-profit are your services basically freeing to the people who need them?

For us, it's we can build insurance. Okay, so we yeah, yeah, we be credited by the state and

everything. Okay, we can build a insurance, but even if they don't, we're not going to say no.

Okay, let me show you. All right. If someone is interested, who should they contact?

They can reach out on Facebook. Usually that's how they reach out. They can reach out to focus

ISE or emergency. You just type in focus prices. It should pop up for you. Okay, they want to reach

out and we'll be there fast basically. And we'll get there fast as weekend and make sure we do

a best work we can do with the child. All right, and focus is F-O-C-U-S-S. Correct. And reach out

for them. Thank you, gentlemen, for chatting with us today. Appreciate it. Thank you.

That's going to do it for today's Let's Talk Newton. Again, we've been talking to

Darnel Lothman, the executive director of focus, as well as Devon Robinson, the executive director

of Therapy House, and they're $50,000 away from possibly moving on a facility here in Newt,

to better serve the youth of Jasper County. Today's Let's Talk Newton powered by the

Knoxville Raceway. Make the short drive down highway 14 for the best dirt track racing

around at the Sprint Car Capital World. If you miss any more Let's Talk programs, you can find

them online daily at cannacareless.com or wherever you subscribe to get your podcasts.

Yep, that's today's Let's Talk Newton.