Restraints Drive Child Advocate To Report Suspected Abuse Against DCF Treatment Facility
By JOSH KOVNER,
jkovner@courant.com
2:25 p.m. EDT, September 13, 2014
Staff members at a locked treatment unit for teenage girls in Middletown used excessive force in a series of physical restraints, the state child advocate says, prompting her office to take the unusual step of reporting four of the cases as suspected child abuse.
Child Advocate Sarah Eagan called for an independent investigation into the Pueblo treatment unit. Eagan and her investigators are mandated reporters of child abuse, like doctors and teachers and police. Pueblo is operated by the Department of Children and Families.
The four complaints were phoned into DCF's abuse hotline after the advocate's office viewed dozens of hours of videotapes of restraints at Pueblo. The investigators noted instances of prone restraints being applied against girls who were disobeying directions but not being physically threatening at that moment. Prone restraints occur when one or more staff members take a youth to the floor, face down, and hold the youth there, however briefly.
Prone restraints are prohibited in some states, and are not allowed to be used in privately managed group homes and other facilities that contract with DCF, according to Associate Child Advocate Miriam "Mickey" Kramer. The state Department of Developmental Services also does not permit prone restraints to be used in private group homes and other locations that serve intellectually disabled people, Eagan said.
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Eagan said some of the restraints depicted on the Pueblo videotapes were unwarranted and excessive, and rose to the level of possible abuse. She said that her office considers the inappropriate use of prone restraints to constitute an emergency.
In addition, one male staff member was involved in a least three physical altercations with girls at the Pueblo treatment unit, but was not let go from DCF until after the third incident, Eagan said, She questioned the department's handling of that employee.
A supervisor at Pueblo -- an assistant unit leader who ordered one of the restraints that was called in as possible abuse -- has been replaced, Eagan said.
DCF officials said all four cases are under internal investigation by the unit that handles the most complex inquiries. If the department substantiates abuse in any one of the four cases, it would have consequences for staff and supervisors at Pueblo, and for policies and protocols in the unit.
During a conference call with The Courant this week, the department's chief lawyer, Barbara Claire, said tapes of the four cases were viewed by other DCF officials and, from their perspective, the restraints weren't considered excessive and did not rise to the level of child abuse.
"That's why we need an independent review," Eagan said.
It was DCF's position during the conference call that restraints at Pueblo and at the Connecticut Juvenile Training School for boys, also in Middletown, are not used to gain compliance from a youth who is only disobeying directions and is not being physically threatening. Restraints are a last resort and are used only when the safety of the youths or the staff are at stake, the DCF officials said during the call.
"We don't use non-compliance to put our hands on young women," said DCF's William Rosenbeck, superintendent of the juvenile training school in Middletown. The nearby Pueblo unit is considered part of CJTS for management purposes
However, all four of the suspected-abuse incidents at Pueblo involved restraints initiated by staff members, called youth service officers, for non-compliance by the girls before any of them had became physical, Eagan said.
She said that at least one of the girls had asthma, and that the prone position in which she was placed during the restraint was specifically prohibited in her treatment plan.
In response to Eagan's charges, Rosenbeck said staff members are trained in "non weight-bearing restraints" that are safe for even those youths with medical alerts.
Eagan and two of her investigators who viewed the tapes and the incident reports said it was very hard to tell whether staff members were putting pressure on the girls' chests or backs. But Eagan noted that at least one of the girls who was restrained said at one point that she was having difficulty breathing.
Asked again if prone restraints were ever used to gain compliance from a disobedient youth, Rosenbeck said, "It's not supposed to be used that way at all. Sometimes it's not easy to frame it that way …"
In all four instances of suspected abuse, handcuffs were used during the heat of a restraint; in one instance, a girl was in handcuffs within four minutes and remained in the cuffs for more than 25 minutes until she was escorted to her room, according to the child advocate's office.
DCF officials said this week that their policy is that handcuffs are used only "to safely transport" a youth.
Rosenbeck said that out of the 22 girls who have been in and out of Pueblo since March, four accounted for 77 percent of the restraints and assaults, and that Pueblo is otherwise stable and accomplishing its treatment goals.
Copyright © 2014, The Hartford Courant
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