• E-Mail
• Print
• Larger
• Smaller

Published: Thursday, Feb. 02, 2012 / Updated: Thursday, Feb. 02, 2012 09:52 AM

Haven of hope charts new course

York Place CEO guides move to community-based programs

YORK -- 

Helping troubled families and abused or neglected children, says new York Place CEO Marco Tomat, is the hardest field he’s ever worked in — “and absolutely the most rewarding.”

“I see the changes in families, in young people’s lives — in families being restored after being separated, and getting generational poverty and alcoholism resolved through a lot of caring and hard work,” Tomat said. “And through finding families that young people didn’t know existed.”

Tomat, 42, recently moved to York from the Durham, N.C., area, where he was assistant director of North Carolina programs for Youth Villages, an in-home program that helps children with chronic behavioral issues.

He replaces John Shiflet, who retired in December after 10 years of leading York Place, the Episcopal Home for Children. The home has a 160-year history of serving as a haven of healing and hope for children.

The leadership change occurs as York Place seeks to diversify and reach out into the community. Last fall, it began that change by opening the York Place Community Counseling Center, which offers a range of outpatient services to children and adults in the Western York County community.

“That’s our endeavor, in the next few years, to develop our community-based programs,” Tomat said. “They want to take what has worked over the course of many years in traditional therapy and transform that to allow that to work in the community.”

Tomas moved to York with his wife, Vikki, a licensed cosmetologist. The couple — who have a 19-year-old daughter at the University of Tennessee — plan to live in the president’s home on the York Place campus.

York Place also has contracted with a Columbia-based agency called Growing Homes to provide services as part of two grant-funded referral programs for the S.C. Department of Social Services.

He said York Place is in the process of hiring six new bachelor’s and master’s degree-level employees to staff the new programs, called Family Support Service and Voluntary Case Management.

The staff of six will work with children and families referred by DSS in their homes, schools, the court system and other community settings to help prevent a child from being placed outside the home.

“For the first time, they’re putting money into heading off the problem before it’s too late,” Tomat said of the state’s move toward community-based programs, instead of more costly residential treatment programs.

The move toward community-based treatment is part of a national trend, he noted. He said evidence shows that a specfic type of treatment can prevent many children from being placed in long-term care.

“They have been going through systemic change in South Carolina for quite some time, and because of budget cuts, because the money is not there” for residential treatment, he said. That spurred a move to put resources into efforts to keep children out of the state’s custody, he said.

Tomat said York Place can work with up to 300 children a year through the grant-funded programs, which begin in March. The grant funding is based on the level of service that is provided, he said.

One factor that has spurred the change is that Medicaid reimbursements for residential treatment have dropped. York Place has space for 36 children, but only 20 of those spaces are being used now, he said.

“That means we have a lot of capable staff that is available to do whatever is necessary to help kids,” he said. “We can continue to be very much a mental health provider in South Carolina, and help those kids.”

Tomat, who grew up in a military family, was born and raised in Germany and Italy. He moved to the United States full-time when he was about 15. After high school, he spent six years in the U.S. Navy.

He later earned a bachelor’s degree in social sciences from California State University and a master’s degree in organizational management from Tusculum College in Tennessee.

He was introduced to social services through his work in a federally funded service organization, AmeriCorp. “For years, I dabbled around with the idea of helping kids,” he said.

He began his career as a social worker with San Diego County, where he spent about a dozen years. His most recent post, in North Carolina, involved supervising field offices for Youth Village, a nonprofit, community-based organization that helps troubled children and their families.

Tomat acknowledged that the field is challenging and he noted the burnout rate is high. It sometimes involved weekend and late-night crisis calls from children in need, he said.

But Tomat also said he found a sense of serenity at York Place that made him certain the job was the right fit for him. “It was almost like it was my calling, for me to be here,” he said.

And he believes that York Place can make a difference. “Having a safe haven, to restore hope and healing, and seeing those young people start to trust again, start to heal again, it’s so amazingly rewarding.”