"I would like to see a trained professional workforce that has the ability to deal with mental health problems, early childhood development, developmental disabilities and substance abuse, because they're all interrelated," says Golden. "Ideally, I would like to see every child-care provider in Colorado hooked up with a mental health consultant."
John Johnston
Tiffany Martin and her sons Demetrey (front), Michael and Ryan.
John Johnston
Mary Grimmer works for the Mental Health Corporation of Denver.
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Tiffany Martin wishes every parent could get the same kind of help that she and her children have received at the Renaissance Children's Center. The 29-year-old, who works as a clerk at Denver Health Medical Center, knows what it's like to have a mental illness: She has had panic attacks since the age of ten, but they didn't impair her life until a few years ago.
For no apparent reason, Martin sank into a deep depression at that time and was afraid to leave her house. She managed to see a doctor who diagnosed her with severe depression, anxiety disorder and agoraphobia, but she eventually became so frightened to go outside that she had to quit her job. She couldn't even get food stamps, because she was terrified to go to the Golden office to apply. Martin stayed in her home for a year.
Luckily, she was referred to a therapist who made home visits. "She was my crutch," Martin says. "The commitment she gave to me and my family was unbelievable. Two or three times a week, she'd come to my home. I had lost a lot of weight, and she'd make sure I was eating. She sent me cards and gave me the boost I needed to get myself better."
In 1997, Martin resolved to leave her house. She decided her first trip would be to a safe place: her mother's house. "One day I got in my car and drove there. It was really hard. I was really shaky and nervous, and I worked on my breathing the whole way there. When I got to my mom's house, she opened the door and started crying," she says.
Since then, Martin has been working, little by little, to stray farther from her home in Lakewood. She's working at the hospital again, but she can't go as far as Aurora or even Englewood. "My kids want to go fishing and camping, but I can't. I haven't been to the mountains since I was sixteen. I don't even remember the mountains. I can't go on vacation. My husband went to Miami at the end of March, and I couldn't go. I know it's been really hard on him and my kids."
Now she's seeing the signs of anxiety disorder in the oldest of her six children, eleven-year-old Ryan. He had his first panic attack at the age of four. "I knew it was a panic attack because he said he couldn't breathe," Martin says.
Ryan is also claustrophobic, so when he was in a previous daycare center, Martin warned his teachers that he couldn't go to cramped, contained places such as movie theaters. But three years ago, his class went to an IMAX movie at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. When Ryan protested outside, his teachers dragged him in anyway. "He freaked out, and they called me and said he was misbehaving," Martin says.
A year later, Martin moved from her home in Denver to an apartment across the street from the Renaissance Children's Center, where she eventually enrolled Ryan and her other children. He's had panic attacks at school and at home, but he hasn't had any in daycare. He has had behavioral problems at Renaissance, however, and so has his ten-year-old brother, Michael. The two of them used to bully other kids. If they wanted something another child had, they'd take it. "A woman has come in to teach them techniques other than bullying," Martin says. "She's taught them that instead of grabbing something, they should calm down and ask the other children if they can play with them or if they can play with the toy after they're done. It's really worked. Now they wait for whatever they want or they offer to play with the other kids. At home they used to grab things, but now they ask permission."
Martin attributes the changes in Ryan and Michael to the daycare center. "I don't think we'd be as far as we are if it weren't for the Renaissance Children's Center," she says. "At home there's only so much you can do."
Now she's waiting for Demetrey's problems to subside. "I think he feels different than my other kids. He's the only one of my kids whose father is black. He's also the middle kid, age-wise. He's a big attention-seeker. With six kids, it's hard to give just one child attention, so he seeks that attention at school and daycare. If the teacher is giving another kid attention, he'll act up," Martin says.
She believes every child in daycare should have access to therapists. "I think that even if parents feel their child doesn't need it, it's good for them to have someone else to talk to. I know that if I ever have to pull my kids out of here, it's something I'll look for in another daycare."
