Orangeburg is home to the only public inpatient adolescent treatment facility that is funded by the state Department of Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse Services, but that is not the end of the story.

The William J. McCord Adolescent Treatment Facility has been recognized by the state Department of Mental Health's Child, Adolescent and Family Council for outstanding service to adolescents with substance abuse disorders.

In operation since 1993, the McCord facility includes a 15-bed inpatient unit for adolescents ages 13 to 17 from across the state who have substance abuse problems. Comprehensive outpatient services are available to families and adolescents ages 11 to 17 from Orangeburg, Bamberg and Calhoun counties.

While adolescents who enter the inpatient facility must have an alcohol and/or drug problem, outpatient services also provide for adolescents who may only have behavioral, family or psychiatric problems.

"We have many adolescents with co-occurring disorders," said Mike Dennis, facility director.

He said the plaque presented to the facility from the state DMH's Child, Adolescent and Family Council means a lot and recognizes the emphasis the facility places on the implementation of evidence-based practices.

"They wanted to recognize our program because of the work that we do in training the kids and also because of the fact that we have traditionally kind of led the effort in South Carolina among all of the adolescent alcohol and drug facilities in ... evidence-based practices," Dennis said.

Cognitive behavioral therapy is the therapy model to which the facility subscribes.

"Evidence-based practices are generally widely regarded as probably the best practice in use to deal with substance abuse and also adolescents. We here at the McCord Center have all our adolescent counselors nationally trained and certified in cognitive behavioral therapy," Dennis said. "We are the only program in South Carolina that can say that."

What is cognitive behavioral therapy?

"It's a type of therapy, where you look at restructuring negative thoughts. As a result, it restructures the behavior. Many of the kids that come in have destructive thought processes which lead to their behaviors, so we try to help work with them to restore their thought processes in order to turn their actions into positive behavior," Dennis said.

He said the facility's director of outpatient adolescent services, Nancy Inman, has been a leader in training the center's staff members to become nationally certified. Inman is herself a diplomat with the National Association of Cognitive Behavioral Therapists.

"She has attended all three levels of national certification and has also been practicing cognitive behavioral therapy for an extended period of time," said Dennis, noting that the McCord facility's comprehensive approach to treatment is crucial.

"You have to be comprehensive when you're dealing with adolescents. They're not pigeon-holed into one set of problems. You have to look at the whole adolescent and then treat the whole adolescent," Dennis said.

For more information on the McCord Center, call Dennis at 803-534-2328, ext. 113 or visit the Web site www.mccordcenter.com.

T&D Staff Writer Dionne Gleaton can be reached by e-mail at dgleaton@timesanddemocrat.com or by phone at 803-533-5534. Discuss this and other stories online at TheTandD.com.

You must be logged in to comment.