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By Julie Goodman
[email protected]LUCEDALE ? Students arriving at Eagle Point Christian Academy go through a two-week evaluation intended to sort out those who may need more help than the school is equipped to give.
But sometimes a child with serious psychological issues slips through.
The problem is, while the school has hired a number of staffers with some training dealing with troubled teens, it has no psychologist or mental health care professional to help with the more serious issues.
Other students at the school, usually admitted after their parents detected problems with truancy, drug use or other criminal behavior, are left to resolve their problems with a staff with no professional training in the mental health field. Some students are coming from abusive homes.
Academy Director John Fountain said he has been searching for a psychologist to hire on, and has even placed an ad in the newspaper, but has not been able to recruit one to the facility.
About 10 percent of the students who come to the school are ultimately referred elsewhere because they are deemed to have more problems than the school can handle, he said.
David Elkin, a child psychologist at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, said it's possible to function without a psychologist in these environments, but it's always better to have one around.
"Most facilities like this have input from a psychologist or a mental health care professional because you are dealing with very troubled youth," he said.
Fountain, 30, who said he had a strained relationship with his father, considered himself a troubled teen. He took over the school after battling a six-year drug and alcohol abuse problem.
Fountain, who studied air conditioning repair at a community college and worked offshore on oil rigs, said it's his experience that makes him most qualified to work with the young men.
The teenagers who come to the academy are often there because they have been rejected by a parent, a sentiment he can relate to, he said.
His parents provided well for him, but his father was always very tough.
"I had everything I wanted but that's not what I needed," he said.
His father, Herman Fountain, said the changes being made at the school are "none of my business."
And as for his son's characterization of their relationship, Herman Fountain had little to add.
"If that's what he feels, that's what he feels," he said.
