In less than six months, the Commonwealth's Center for Children and Adolescents is set to close. Concerned parents and employees voiced their frustrations to state health officials at a meeting at the center Wednesday.

Despite assurances from the state, parents say if this place closes, they won't have anywhere to take their kids for treatment. Parents, like Tina Johnson, want answers.

"If this place closes down, there is nowhere for my son," says Johnson. "He's either going to end up in jail or dead."

Employees, like Teri Sumey, also want answers.

"We are serving more and more kids at our center than ever," says Sumey, the center's education director.

Frustrated, angry and upset, caregivers and family members of patients want to know where their kids will go for treatment after CCCA closes.

Johnson says her son is autistic and has been treated at CCCA on and off for two years.

"I think that they need to do the best that they can to make it happen, to keep this place open," says Johnson.

Facing a nearly $3 billion state-wide budget shortfall, Gov. Tim Kaine is recommending the center's close.

Dr. James Reinhard, the state's Commissioner of the Department of Mental Health, Mental Retardation, and Substance Abuse Services, says part of the plan is to use incentives and other means to get private facilities to admit patients from CCCA.

"I think we work with the local community service boards as well as the private sector," says Reinhard. "So, I don't think it's solely one sector of the stakeholders that we're going to rely on. I think it's going to be a combination of things."

Julie Irvine doubts private facilities would admit her nine-year-old son, Gabe.

"When we went to the emergency room, Gabe was homicidal and suicidal. There was nowhere for him to go on the 18th. They released him. They had nowhere to send him," says Irvine.

The center admitted Gabe about two weeks ago. She came to Wednesday's meeting to plea on behalf of her son and the other 33 kids at CCCA. However, she doesn't think the outcome will change.

"I just know a few more people than I did," says Irvine. "There still are no answers as far as what to do from here."

Of course, another question is what will happen to the nearly 200 people employed at CCCA. Employees focused almost exclusively Wednesday on the welfare of the kids at the center. Reinhard says the state is working with Western State Hospital and human resources at the central office in Richmond to help find them jobs.

Wednesday's public meeting was the first of several. The next meeting will be held at the end of January, but a date has not been set yet.