Ending the Pain : Research: San Diego Center for Children is developing treatments to stop the cycle of child abuse.

A San Diego center formed more than a century ago as a safehouse for homeless women and children is still working to address social ills. Now it houses children like Jennifer--molested by her stepfather for years--and has even ventured into the realm of research.

Jennifer, 10, arrived at the San Diego Center for Children in July, pumped full of medications that left her overweight and lethargic. During a visit to her father and stepmother more than a year earlier, she had suddenly opened up, telling them about four years of sexual molestation and threats by her stepfather in Michigan.

Jennifer’s stepfather is now in jail and will not be eligible for parole for eight years, but the disclosure unlocked an unmanageable rage and depression in the little girl.

By the time she arrived at the center, Jennifer (not her real name) had undergone two stints in another residential treatment program, where, her parents said, the staff gave her six medications and ignored the fact that she refused to bathe or change her underwear.

“Once she started to uncover everything, she really went downhill. Her schoolwork went down. She started hurting other kids,” said her stepmother, Diane, who was home alone with Jennifer watching a kissing scene on television when the girl told her about the abuse. “Our house was a war zone. She was totally uncontrollable.”

Now, Diane and Jennifer’s father, Bill, feel she may have a fighting chance at recovery for the first time since the drama unfolded in their South San Diego home.

Staffers at the center are weaning her off the last of the medications. Jennifer rides a bike, takes gymnastics, is joining the Girl Scouts and attends a regular group session with other girls who have been sexually abused. The center also has involved Bill and Diane--who asked that their last name not be used--in her treatment, saving their marriage while working to piece the girl’s life back together again.

The 105-year-old San Diego Center for Children--the oldest agency of its kind in the county--serves as a last resort for the treatment of severely disturbed, physically and sexually abused children--some of whom have been hospitalized 20 times.

While the nonprofit center has made a name for itself by involving children in sports, art and music while they undergo comprehensive therapy, it recently took on a new mission: pulling in a national panel of researchers to figure out how to treat the children and put an end to the abuse in future generations.

While children such as Jennifer recover from the severe abuse that left them unable to cope in the world of more fortunate kids, they also may be helping the next generation of victims.

Five national experts in fields ranging from pediatric cardiology to neurology, psychiatry, psychology and special education have come together to determine what pushed these children beyond the breaking point, how to work around their deficits, and how to prevent a replay in future generations.

The interdisciplinary collaborations are rare in a world where research is often confined by narrow academic disciplines and funding streams. While the center’s board changed its mission to include research less than two years ago, there already are some compelling results.

Dr. Doris Trauner, chief of pediatric neurology at UC San Diego Medical Center, has found a high percentage of neurological abnormalities in the center’s children. She also found brain lesions in as many as half the children she examined--hints of severe beatings, birth trauma or the effects of drug or alcohol use during pregnancy.

The results may offer answers to the children’s tortured histories and possibilities for treatment, especially when mulled over by the rest of the nationally acclaimed panel.

Then there is the running program--started by the center’s chief psychiatrist, Mark Shipman. A dedicated long-distance runner familiar with “runner’s high,” it dawned on Shipman in 1980 that children also might benefit emotionally from running. He was right. The children who run with him develop trust, they relax, they feel more free to talk, Shipman said.

Shipman also found that the neurotransmitters activated by running decrease the children’s dependence on psychotropic drugs, which have been tied to heart problems in children and adults.

He is now working with Fred James, a Cincinnati pediatric cardiologist, to refine the research.

The center needs about $450,000 more in order to break ground on a new $2-million facility that will house a research center for the five-member panel, along with a 16-bed unit for severely disturbed children who are suicidal or otherwise need vigilant attention, the center’s head psychologist and CEO, Mark Hopper, said.

Contractors are busy putting together a temporary lab in an existing building. That room will house exercise bikes complete with heart monitors and contraptions to measure oxygen blood levels, for the running research.

Thirty-two children between the ages of 5 and 13 live at the Kearny Mesa site, a collection of cottages decorated in hues of charcoal blue and muted rose. Children whiz by on bikes, plant their own gardens, and jog with Shipman in the hilly scrub that borders the center. Twelve more live in an off-site center, and about 18 children live at home but come to the center for school and therapy.

The Kearny Mesa buildings date to the 1950s, but the center’s history goes back 105 years to a land boom gone bust in the San Diego area. The economic crash left scores of women and children homeless, and many of the women turned to prostitution. That is when the Women’s Christian Temperance Union stepped in and built a house for them in downtown San Diego.

“It was pretty forward-thinking. They found jobs for (the women), so they had to take care of the kids. Eventually the focus became children,” Hopper said.

The home moved to Balboa Park and catered to orphans and children from difficult families, and in the late 1950s it moved to the current site and started treating children instead of just housing them.

Bing Crosby used to drop by for visits, and more recently Roseanne Arnold--who has publicly spoken about her own childhood sexual abuse--has visited the children.

Shipman got involved 30 years ago as the institution’s first psychiatrist. The center needed his signature on some forms, but weekly visits grew into a powerful commitment. The center struck him as different from other residential programs, and he has worked to maintain that difference.

“The whole way society approaches children is divided. Schools don’t understand psychiatry. Psychiatrists don’t understand physical health. I came in and I thought, ‘Oh, my God. It is pristine. It is available, and it can be done,” said Shipman, a casual, soft-spoken man who spearheaded the drive for a national research panel.

The cooperation among disciplines also serves the children well.

“Things don’t fall through the cracks as easily,” said counselor Betty Schroeck, who runs the girls’ group on sexual abuse and manages the center’s day treatment program.

“We work as a team and brainstorm together to approach any issue that may come through the door--social workers, psychologists, M.D.s, the neurologist, the recreational therapist, the art therapist, the teachers--they are all right here on the grounds.”

The center’s foray into research marks the latest phase in its evolution. As the needs of children have changed, the center has changed to address them, Hopper said.

In today’s world, that means treatment for sexual abuse. Between 60% and 80% of the children at the center have been sexually molested or abused--the majority by a member or friend of the family, Hopper said.

The center’s research may help turn the trend around, he said.

For starters, staff members are working on getting the children back into the mainstream, and helping them overcome the feelings of guilt, embarrassment and sexual aggression that often stem from sexual abuse.

Brian, an 11-year-old boy in day treatment at the center, was molested at age 3 and 4 by two people. Since he turned 5, he has been in and out of more than a dozen treatment centers from San Diego to Hawaii, Minnesota and North Carolina.

While Brian--not his real name--says he knows the molestation wasn’t his fault, he says he is at the center “because of my behavior,” and lists the reasons in order of importance.

“No. 1, I run away a lot,” the little blond boy with the earring said. “No. 2, I was sexually abused. Three, I just don’t hang around reality. And four, I have been kicked out of just about every school I ever went to.”

Like many children who have suffered sexual abuse, the behavior problems the molestations spurred led to more abuse--like beatings by his uncle, a strict disciplinarian. And like others at the center, in some ways Brian seems old for his years.

At other programs, he never went to group sessions, Brian said. But the group for sexually abused boys at the center has helped him talk about the experience frankly.

“Most kids build a wall around it and forget about it. I sit there and think about it--if it was my fault, if I brought it on myself,” he said. “You feel kind of angry at the person, and sometimes you will feel like you are stupid because you let someone trick you. There are all kinds of feelings, lots of mixed feelings. It is good to know you are not alone.”

The center is better than any other place he has been because he feels like a regular child, Brian said. He rides a bike, plays football, and is learning how to play piano and African drums. While Brian said he got used to moving from center to center, and often thought he would feel bad “for the rest of his life,” he is now looking forward to going to a regular school and living permanently with his father and brother.

“People think kids who have been molested are different than anybody else,” he said. “But we like the same things. We like bikes. We like Rollerblades. We like football. I am going to be a linebacker with the Balboa Raiders.”

Complete recovery is a long process, however, and center staff members say the kind of abuse these children suffered can never be “cured.” The emotions surrounding the abuse will continue to emerge as the children develop, Schroeck said.

The center also encourages parents to deal openly with the problem of sexual abuse, staff members said, and research will serve to further demystify it.

For Bill--a career officer with the Navy--and his wife, Diane, confronting Jennifer’s situation head-on took enormous strength, and came close to destroying their marriage.

Bill was at sea when Jennifer sat down and told Diane a few of the things her stepfather had done to her. Diane called a therapist the next day, and contacted police, social services, and the Michigan authorities within two weeks. The prompt action, however, didn’t make their task any easier.

“The parents have to learn to deal with it before they can deal with the kids,” Diane said. “People have to know that, if it happens, you have to push it. I went and bought every book, all about abuse, but none of them deal with children. The books don’t cover this. When your child sits down at dinner and says, ‘There’s a boy at school and I’m thinking of doing with him what my stepdad did with me,’ how do you handle that?

“Oh, I wish this never happened. It would have been so much easier to pretend this never happened,” she said tearfully.

The center runs a parent group that Diane and Bill plan to attend for the first time today. Staff members hope the couple will help other parents who are having trouble handling their children’s abuse.

Treatment and research may offer the only solution to generational patterns of violence and abuse, they said. The children who confront their histories have a much greater chance of avoiding the role of abuser, the center’s Hopper said.

“Kids have heard and read a lot about the generational effect. They are scared. They are worried. They are sick about it,” Hopper said. “We try to tell them, ‘Not everyone who has been sexually abused sexually abuses their kids.’ ”