Jennifer Fuoco (at left in photo) and Carmel Limoncelli have every reason to smile brightly as they stand in front of the attractive slide in the colorful, kid-friendly new playground — which looks ordinary, but isn’t.
Fuoco is the social worker/director of St. Raphael’s Hospital’s Children’s Psychiatric Emergency Service (CPES) unit; Limoncelli is its longtime coordinator and administrator. The playground, which opened there June 28 and was privately funded in a campaign led by Saint Raphael supporters and board members Lucille Loricco and Rachel DeGennaro, is, for everyone involved, a dream fulfilled.
Consciously designed and located right in front of the hospital to the west of the main entrance, on Chapel, between Orchard and Sherman, to lend to the hospital center a sense of joy and healing that comes with the notion of play, this is no ordinary playground — well, it is and it isn’t.
The playground is specifically earmarked for the use of the 20 patients — and their families — in the hospital CPES unit, which serves pediatric psychiatric patients from age 2 through 17. Many New Haveners probably do not know or sufficiently appreciate that Saint Raphael’s CPES unit, which has been in operation for 31 years, is the only one in the entire state that serves patients from ages 2 to 5. That’s young to be at what might be a quite terrible place in your life, and one of the compelling reasons a playground has long been needed.
“When the unit began, ” explained Limoncelli, “we had only four to six beds. We were small enough to take the kids out to the park to play, where they could be supervised. So we went to Edgewood Avenue park, to the beach with them, we went all over.”
However, as the unit grew over the years in response to the growing need, and now with 20 beds (almost always filled, with half the patients from the Greater New Haven area and the other half from throughout the state), where could the kids, all of whom needed careful supervision, go to play, especially the little ones, and including teenagers who might be waiting for up to two or three months for a placement in another facility? All kids need to play, explained Limoncelli, and that might be especially so for those with serious problems who, without the playground, would be required to spend all of their time in the locked ward on the floors above.
“So staff here had been looking for a space for many years,” explained Fuoco, and finally, in 2002 the process began. With full support from David Benfer, the CEO of the Saint Raphael Health Care System and Buck Wilson, who heads the Saint Raphael’s Foundation, the playground was situated in front of the hospital. “It’s deliberately very visible,” said Limoncelli. The attractive blue benches are inventively lettered with the words “hope” and “healing.”
Limoncelli, Fouco, and their team scouted playgrounds all around the area including the Institute for Living in Hartford; Hannah’s Dream, in East Shore Park in New Haven, which is geared to the handicapped; and Jacob’s Beach, a public beach in Guilford. Combining the best features of each, they worked hard, and successfully with their colleagues in the engineering department at the hospital, Tony Zampano and Tony Grasso, to stay away from any institutional look.
With slides and swings and a basketball hoop standing somewhat under the ten-foot height and thus encouraging a winning dunk (your reporter visited on a day of heavy rain so there were no kids about), the playground looks as if it could be part of the best private school, or belong in the yard of a well-appointed private home.
“We use it not only for physical activity,” explained Fuoco, “for the patients, but also for their families, for brothers and sisters.” Every Thursday night Limoncelli runs a support group for the families of patients; the kids are hospitalized for the whole range of illnesses, including bipolar disorder, depression, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, among others. While the parents meet, the little kids play. The adolescents bring their radios down to the playground to hang out.
While there is a water and sand table, which is used for certain specific therapeutic uses, the playground’s swings, slides, benches, picnic tables, and soft carpeted surface is a an active haven for everyone connected with the kids on the unit.
For the 20 patients with whom it regularly works, Saint Raphael’s CPES unit has long had the dedication of the unit’s five pediatric psychiatrists, and a nursing staff to patient ratio of three to one. And now, a splendid playground as well.
