Swissvale Mental Wellness Center a Safe Haven for Kids

Depending on when you visit Naomi’s House, you may walk into a dance session or a martial arts lesson. The children might hover around a piano in one room or a mixing bowl in the other, making salsa from vegetables grown in a garden out back. 

Don’t ask for Naomi — you’ll find no such person. Instead, you’ll meet Denise Murphy, a licensed counselor who opened the children’s mental wellness center in 2009. 

“Overall, we want it to be fun,” Murphy said. “Most of the children probably don’t realize it’s a therapeutic program [at first].”

Naomi’s House, which reopened this past November after a fire forced the center to close in May 2010, runs an after school program from Monday through Thursday for children ages seven to 13. Most children come from the Woodland Hills School District, where Murphy also does in-school one-on-one sessions. 

“Here, it’s more hands on,” Murphy said. “We’re seeing them interact with other students.”

Parents or school faculty refer students who display signs of mental illness, such as anger management, or who exhibit problems with attendance, group work or conflict resolution.

The wellness program takes about 20 students at a time. On a typical day, children do homework, exercise, help cook and eat dinner, and have a group therapy session between 3:30 and 6 p.m.

Many children at the program already have mental health diagnoses, Murphy said, but not all do. In some cases, she added, poor diet or domestic problems may lead to inaccurate diagnoses. 

In any case, she said, it’s important to address mental health concerns at an early stage.

“We are early intervention and prevention,” Murphy said. “I think the need is great. And the need is great, in one part, because people can’t get out and get the services.”

Murphy is a lifelong Swissvale resident. She said she developed the idea for Naomi’s House while working previously as a counselor in Pittsburgh City Schools. 

The name Naomi, which means “my delight,” derives from the Book of Ruth, an Old Testament book in which a family flees Bethlehem to Moab during a famine. Naomi’s husband and sons die, and she returns to Bethlehem with Ruth, the Moab widow of one of her sons, to start anew. The tale is regarded by some as a portrayal of morality through inclusive communities that show love and kindness to the needy.

Discovering a Lost Generation

Among the center’s clientele, Denise Murphy said she has worked with some children who are homeless, some who are impoverished and some whose parents have serious mental health problems.

“If they don’t have you, they might not have anyone else,” she said. 

It’s difficult for parents to seek help for their children, she said, and oftentimes parents see the children’s behavior as a reflection of inept parenting. 

Just as often, she said, it can be a logistical difficulty; for many single parents, caring for their other children, putting food on the table and keeping regular physician appointments can be hard enough, especially when a parent is on the lower end of the economic scale.

“Trying to get the stigma taken off the mental health component is a challenge,” she said.

Even among school teachers who see the children daily, considering children’s mental health conditions is uncommon, said Scott Murphy, her husband, who also works at the center.

“The first thing students say is, ‘no one listens to me,’ ” he said. “We’re not teaching this in school. Nobody talks about it until it’s too late. These kids are just being medicated and pushed aside.”

A staff member at , which partners with Naomi’s House, said the program is viewed there as a success, but declined to comment on record further about the program’s impact on students.

According to Scott Murphy, a major goal of the center is to get students on the honor roll. All but one of the students currently enrolled at Naomi’s House has done so, he added.

“It’s a total sanctuary for them,” he said, adding that students built friendships they might not have formed while struggling in school.

Material influences can be just as important as psychological ones, Denise Murphy said. The center makes sure kids eat dinner there and get adequate exercise. In the winter, the center even tries to provide gloves, hats and coats for children who need them.

“It’s kind of hard to say ‘everything’s going to be OK’ when you don’t have a coat,” she said. “We like to create a family atmosphere here — it is a house. At the same time, we’re giving them direction, we’re giving them love.”

In the warmer months, children care for a garden planted in the yard behind the facility. Vegetables from the garden are used in the center’s dinners, but children can take them home, too. Murphy said she allows students to come by anytime to weed the garden or pick a vegetable, and often they do.

Sometimes, she added, the children will be playing outside, perhaps a game of kickball, and kids from the neighborhood will join in. They may not be familiar with Naomi’s House, with mental illness or the difficulties these children face, but she doesn’t stop them for a lecture.

“That’s OK,” she said. “We’re part of the community.”

‘We don’t live like that.’

Denise and Scott, who works as a butcher at the local Giant Eagle by day, said the Swissvale community has been responsive to Naomi’s House, offering help and complimenting their efforts.

“Typically, people don’t speak when they see each other on the street,” Scott Murphy said. “It’s different here.”

The building itself was formerly a bar, which after closing sat vacant for three years before the Murphys purchased it. When they started renovations, the block glass windows were caked in plaster to keep out light.

“First, they told us to put bars on the windows,” Denise Murphy said of community members. “I told them, ‘We don’t live like that.’ ”

Now, those windows are exposed and detailed with bright paint, spilling a calm and multicolored light across a carpeted room where martial arts lessons are held. A horseshoe bar was replaced by a wood-floored dance studio with mirror-lined walls and a baby grand piano in one corner. A spacious dining area’s tables are flooded with natural light, and a quiet nook contains an office crammed with books, games and a computer. 

While a corner nearby used to be known as a hot spot for drug activity, that has changed since Naomi’s House opened, Scott Murphy said. Above all, he added, Naomi’s House wants to be a positive force in the community at-large, working to better the neighborhood from the bottom up.

“We’re not rich,” Scott Murphy said. “We didn’t have anything, just love and labor.”

Denise said she earns revenue through insurance payments for the group therapy sessions, but the rest is on the house. They subcontract out of pocket for services like the martial arts instruction.

But between payments from the children’s insurance providers and her private practice, she makes enough to keep the doors open — which, ultimately, is her only concern.

“We do it because the need is here,” she said. “We’re really just trying to get in and support our families, support our communities.”