|
Oregon slow to deal with troubled
facilities for troubled kids
December 20, 2008
By Michelle Cole
SALEM -- Authorities knew of
problems at two institutions that house Oregon's most troubled
children: Kids getting the wrong medication; workers with criminal
records; a teen with a broken collarbone after a fight with staff;
and unsupervised mentally ill youths.
But instead of closing the
institutions, state licensing officials spent several months warning
the Kirkland Institute near Burns and the Pendleton Academies in
eastern Oregon.
It was only after authorities
feared that children were in danger that they cracked down and
blocked new admissions. At Kirkland, for instance, another teen in
state protective custody was taken to the emergency room after a
run-in with staff. At Pendleton, a 17-year-old was charged with
raping a 13-year-old girl.
Why did the state wait months to
act?
The answer is complicated and may
be considered by the Legislature next year.
Few places in Oregon -- especially
rural Oregon -- will take in kids with severe behavioral or mental
health issues, and officials worried there would be nowhere else for
these children to go.
Also, Oregon has only two licensing
specialists to oversee 240 so-called private child caring agencies
-- a category that includes everything from boarding schools to
mental health treatment centers.
Erinn Kelley-Siel, interim director
of the state's Children, Adults and Families Division, said she's
considering asking the 2009 Legislature to allow the state to levy
fees in order to hire more staff and to grant the legal authority to
impose civil penalties at the first sign of trouble.
"Short of suspending their license,
we have no alternative kind of remedy," Kelley-Siel said. "I think
this could make a big difference in the lives of hundreds of kids."
Typically, group homes, mental
health treatment centers and other state-licensed child care
agencies get a visit from a licensing specialist once every two
years.
Rejected boys It was during one of
those visits that licensing coordinator Monika Kretzschmar
discovered serious problems at the Kirkland Institute for Child and
Family Study, where the Oregon Youth Authority sends boys and the
Department of Human Services puts teen boys who have been rejected
by family foster homes or other group placements.
Kretzschmar learned that some on
Kirkland's staff had criminal histories and others lacked the
qualifications for their job. Neither the state nor Kirkland would
discuss the specifics of those criminal histories with The
Oregonian.
She also found medication logs
indicating the boys did not receive their prescribed meds, were
given another boy's pills or, in one instance, a teen was taken to
the hospital because staff gave him an accidental overdose.
Kretzschmar followed with a letter
listing 19 corrective actions Kirkland must take to retain its
license. A few weeks later, Kirkland named a new executive director.
"We're trying to do everything we
can," Rich Streeter, Kirkland's newly hired executive director told
The Oregonian. "You're talking about some of the most difficult kids
in Oregon, and some of the most difficult to place. We're making
sure we're providing them with a safe, secure environment when
they're here."
But problems continued.
In September, the state received a
report that a Kirkland employee broke a teen's collarbone while
trying to subdue him. An investigation by the state Office of
Investigations and Training found that the actions taken by Kirkland
staff constituted child abuse.
On Sept. 19, Erin Fultz at the
Oregon Youth Authority e-mailed her supervisor: "I just feel
uncomfortable with our youth staying there since there have been so
many red flags over the last several months."
Just before Thanksgiving, the state
received a report of a Kirkland teen taken to the emergency room
after a run-in with staff. That's when state authorities closed
Kirkland to new admissions and began finding places to move the 22
teens who were there.
A rare licensing move It was a rare
step. State licensing authorities said they've closed admissions on
only half a dozen programs over the past five years.
The last boy was moved out of
Kirkland on Thursday, Streeter said.
Kirkland is working with the state
so that it can once again accept new admissions, he said.
Meanwhile, in Pendleton, the state
Addictions and Mental Health Division informed Pendleton Academies
on Nov. 17 that it intended to revoke the institution's
certification to provide psychiatric treatment.
Pendleton Academies treats girls
and boys ages 5 to 18 who suffer from bipolar disorder, psychosis
and other severe mental disorders.
State officials say they've worked
with Pendleton to iron out problems since 2005. But last August,
they warned Pendleton Academies it needed to improve in eight areas
or lose its certification.
Among those areas: ensuring that
children receive appropriate treatment for their psychiatric
symptoms and that children get adequate supervision.
State officials said they were
alarmed that police responded to at least 56 calls at the
institution in the first six months of this year.
"Many of the incidents requiring
police intervention involved child-to-child assaults resulting in an
injury to one or both of the children," notes an Aug. 20 letter from
state officials.
The Pendleton Academies board
replaced the executive director with Terry Edvalson, and state
officials allowed the institution to continue operating.
"The staff has done a significant
job in helping turn this place around," Edvalson said.
But state officials said they could
not overlook what occurred Oct. 27, when a 17-year-old male is
accused of coercing a 13-year-old girl to have sex.
Employees had been told not to
allow the two within 15 feet of each other, yet records indicate the
boy and girl were unsupervised.
"The people who were responsible
for supervision are no longer with us. They were fired," Edvalson
said.
Pendleton Academies can appeal to
the state to be allowed to continue to operate. In the meantime,
Edvalson said earlier this month that his staff was looking for
suitable places to send the kids.
"You just don't pull the plug," he
said. "Our kids are very fragile, and we need to get them out of
here as carefully as we can so we don't do them damage."
-- Michelle Cole;
michellecole@news.oregonian.com
|
