Ottawa's Roberts/Smart Centre, a facility that provides mental-health services for children, may soon have to shut its doors, according to its board of directors.

Cameron MacLeod, executive director of the Roberts/Smart Centre, said Tuesday that if the centre's funding situation doesn't improve, it would declare bankruptcy on May 30.

The Roberts/Smart Centre opened in 1973 and treats children facing mental-health challenges at five locations in Ottawa.

At the moment, said MacLeod, the Carling Avenue-based centre is operating with a deficit of $200,000.

"Frankly I get nauseous thinking about what would be involved in closing down the centre," said MacLeod, who hopes the province will step in to help the centre keep its beds open through tough economic times.

"What we do see is a wall is coming — where we are no longer going to be able, on a month-to-month basis, to meet those obligations," said McLeod, who said the centre hopes more funding will help it keep its residential beds open to the city's young people in need of treatment.

About 200 children go through the centre each year, said MacLeod, and many stay 12 to 14 months.

"Very, very aggressive acting out, a lot of cutting, unpredictability, spontaneous stuff that comes out in the form of aggressive behaviour," MacLeod said, describing some of the residents who benefit from the centre's help.

John Helferty, the manager of operations at the Roberts/Smart Centre said that over the 27 years he has worked at the facility and as a frontline counsellor, he's seen many examples of why such a centre should be preserved.

"One that I can think of," he said, "is we had a very disturbed young man from a neglected background and he was with us for quite a period of time, I think over two years.

"And he actually went on to university, got a university degree and he's now working in the high-tech sector," he said.

Of the Roberts/Smart Centre's 39 residential beds, 25 are paid for by the Children's Aid Society and 14 are funded by the Ontario government.

Centre gets $7M in transfer payments

To care for the children it treats, said MacLeod, the centre employs 100 full-time staff and several other workers.

Between the province and the CAS, the centre receives over $7 million in provincial transfer payments each year.

But MacLeod said that's no longer enough to keep them going.

"This year we anticipate no increase [in funding] and there's actually talk out there of actually of a two per cent decrease next year," he said.

MacLeod said he met with the regional manager of the province's Children and Youth Services Department on Monday and the manager planned to speak with the minister.