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The Current Era
In 1989 Dr. Furman took to the Board his recommendation that a search be undertaken to recruit a new director for the School and Center. Dr. Thomas Barrett accepted the invitation to become Director, following a year of transition, in the spring of 1991. One of Dr. Barrett’s first tasks was to recruit additional candidates to the Course in Child Analysis. This was accomplished through the implementation of two initiatives. The first was to establish opportunities for psychology interns and post-doctoral fellows as well as social work field placement students to come to Hanna Perkins for a year of supervised study and training. After this was implemented in the 1994-1995 academic year, it began to occur that some who came elected to stay on to pursue full training in child analysis. Another initiative to help make such training more affordable was the implementation of a Loan/Scholarship program which provided funds to reduce the costs of a candidate’s training analysis. These initiatives have proved successful as there are now more than 20 candidates in training. While more than half are based in the Cleveland area, several participate in the training program through our video-teleconferencing technology. To provide for training opportunities for the students, interns, and fellows it was necessary to expand our clinic services to offer psychotherapy to a greater number of children. Gradually Hanna Perkins became known in the community as a resource for such services and by 2000 clinic services had expanded so that more than 6,000 hours of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis were being provided annually. As a consequence, it became necessary to increase our office space. In 2000 we began to rent space at a facility in Westlake, which also enabled an expansion of our clinic services to a westside population. Throughout this period of expansion, however, service fee revenue did not similarly increase. This largely occurred because we were serving a predominantly poor population. Even as we remained steadfast in offering our services on a sliding scale basis, particularly in the School we endured a period of several years when our census was below capacity. We came to realize that University Circle was no longer an area where families could be expected to bring their children on a daily basis for school or therapy.
In November of 2000 the Board of
Trustees began to consider relocating. In December we learned that the Malvern
School building in Shaker Heights would be vacated in June of 2002 by its then
tenant, the Solomon Schechter School and the City had decided to divest itself
of the building. After visiting the building we realized it could well serve
our needs so we began work with an architect, designer, and construction manager
to prepare to respond to a “request for proposals” issued by the City in June of
2001. Following a strong presentation to the Shaker Heights City Council in
November of that year, we were gratified to learn a few weeks later that our
proposal had been accepted.
We then faced the challenge of moving forward quickly as a requirement of the City was that the building not remain vacant for an extended period. In June of 2002 we were able to proceed with our plans for an historic restoration of the facility with actual work commencing in December of that year. Recognizing our need to open the new school year in the new building, the construction team worked diligently and overcame a number of surprises and obstacles so that we were able to obtain an occupancy permit and begin both School and Clinic services at the new location in September 2003. Adding to the difficulties encountered in the process of relocating was the sad emotional burden we all carried as a consequence of the deaths within a six month period of three of our most beloved, revered, and influential colleagues. In early April of 2002 Marion Barnes died unexpectedly one month short of her 92nd birthday. At the time of her death Marion was still working with parents of children in the school. We were further saddened in early August by the death of Erna “Poppy” Furman. Though she had been battling cancer for a number of years she had only revealed this to the staff several months earlier. She, too, worked until the time of her death, completing writing projects and inspiring us to continue with her work. Then, only six weeks later, deeply grieved by Poppy’s death, her husband of 48 years, Robert Furman, died of pneumonia. In the deaths of these three esteemed colleagues Hanna Perkins lost the combined experience base of nearly 150 years of service to our organization. All three had been involved with Hanna Perkins almost from its inception. They had all been our teachers and leaders. As we have become well established in our new facility we are seeing evidence of the wisdom of our decision to relocate. Through our Parent-Child Resource Center we are becoming more widely known within the community with the result that, having been introduced to Hanna Perkins through that setting, parents have sought School or Clinic services for their children, as well.
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ddewalt@hannaperkins.org with
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