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Welcome to today's Let's Talk Newton powered by the Knoxville Raceway. I'm Randy Van
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and today we're going to be talking to Garnel Lothman. He's the executive director of Focus
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as well as Devon Robinson, executive director of Therapy House. They are working to get
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a location in Newton. They've been serving youth in Pope County and lately in Jasper County as well.
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$50,000 away now from possibly getting a location here in Newton thanks to a recent donation.
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You know, talk about their services, what they have been offering in Jasper County and how they
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think that they'd be better if they had a facility here to help them operate out of. So we'll
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start off talking to Garnel and just to talk a little bit about what you guys do and have been
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doing for us in youth here in Jasper County. Right, right. Well, we've been working with the
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youth since 2015. And so now on the crisis side of things, it's just picked up everywhere.
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And for Pope County, it's working. We'll have that observation, some of you've
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observations in it. One of the first ones in Iowa that's just youth only. So that becomes
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important because a lot of oftentimes we leave the youth out in their future then we need to make
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sure we have them in. As far as Jasper County, the cause for us has picked up.
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And I think Stigma plays a part. I think it's easy to call us because it's nothing here for you.
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I'm not sure if the police department even have some crisis they can call to help you for
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whatever the case may be. But working out here, it just seemed like Stigma. You know, you don't want
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people to think whatever they want to think about you. So that would be part of us educating
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the community as well. And what you offer is like just a situation comes up. You remove the youth
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from that for a while. Right. So what we offer is what happened is the situation of rise,
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we can get there immediately, right? 24, 7, 7 days a week doesn't shut down. We'll be able to get
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to them immediately and give them immediate services, right? So we can pull them in due de-escalation,
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have them immediately with a therapist, give me some crisis worker, social workers,
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they'll continue on care around them offering them be his, you know, after they be, just continue
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with those things. More importantly, it's the de-escalation part. So we can hold them up to 23 hours.
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Okay. You know what I mean? In process, we'll build some coping skills plans. And if we say okay,
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they're ready to go back on, you know, we can send them home with a plant and not just send them
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home with nothing. Okay. So we can, they can utilize our therapist so they maybe they have a therapist
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already. But we still want to be able to give them the resources they need. And we set down with
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your care's team so it seemed like they have some resources too. But I'm absolutely sure we're
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to miss and part of this. And after 23 hours that we said the kid cannot de-escalate as much
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and need more time, then we were, for an example, we have a partnership where he's to still so we
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can get him there to do five more days. And that helps the system, though, that helps the police
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department, that helps the hospital, that just helps everybody. You know, we can take him from here
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down there, but you have to come get him once we're done. Yeah. So to me, it's just make better
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sense to be here in Jasper County and support the city and the county. The more importantly,
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the youth and not make it harder and it has to be for families to come back down there and get
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him and all those type of things. Let's talk a little bit to Devon here, Director of Therapy
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House, a veteran owned and operated facility. What do you folks do there? Well, we actually are
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the brother part of the continuum of care with with focus. We're making sure that after those kids
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age out of their program at 17, they have a place to go. When you're dealing with mental health,
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we have to make sure that the mental health status or the quality of life doesn't stop at 17,
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it continues after that. And we don't want the kids after 17 to just fall victim to any trauma
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or anything else that they may endure. We want them to have a place that they can come to because
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we will establish that while they're 17 and under through focus. And so that way it's kind of
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like a warm handoff. They already be for me with us and understanding so it'll be kind of just
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a even handoff to us. But that's why we're trying to come here. I'm from the rural part.
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I grew up on the small farm myself, so I understand the dynamics of being in rural areas, how those
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services, these services that we're bringing are needed. And we just want to make sure that we
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bring some positive to the community that can help, like I always say, do real the trainings that
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may be coming. And being non-profit are your services basically freeing to the people who need them?
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For us, it's we can build insurance. Okay, so we yeah, yeah, we be credited by the state and
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everything. Okay, we can build a insurance, but even if they don't, we're not going to say no.
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Okay, let me show you. All right. If someone is interested, who should they contact?
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They can reach out on Facebook. Usually that's how they reach out. They can reach out to focus
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ISE or emergency. You just type in focus prices. It should pop up for you. Okay, they want to reach
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out and we'll be there fast basically. And we'll get there fast as weekend and make sure we do
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a best work we can do with the child. All right, and focus is F-O-C-U-S-S. Correct. And reach out
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for them. Thank you, gentlemen, for chatting with us today. Appreciate it. Thank you.
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That's going to do it for today's Let's Talk Newton. Again, we've been talking to
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Darnel Lothman, the executive director of focus, as well as Devon Robinson, the executive director
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of Therapy House, and they're $50,000 away from possibly moving on a facility here in Newt,
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to better serve the youth of Jasper County. Today's Let's Talk Newton powered by the
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Knoxville Raceway. Make the short drive down highway 14 for the best dirt track racing
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around at the Sprint Car Capital World. If you miss any more Let's Talk programs, you can find
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them online daily at cannacareless.com or wherever you subscribe to get your podcasts.
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Yep, that's today's Let's Talk Newton.