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Bill seeks juvenile system reform :
It urges state to oversee training in facilities after boy's death
February 7, 2007
By Gadi Dechter
The state would be required to
oversee the training of staff at private residential programs for
juvenile offenders like the Bowling Brook Preparatory School, where
a student died last month, under legislation pending in Annapolis.
Isaiah Simmons, 17, died after
being physically restrained for several hours by Bowling Brook
counselors. The methods used to subdue him have raised questions
about the state's oversight of such programs. Witnesses have said
they saw staff members sitting on the struggling teen until he
passed out and died.
Maryland's Department of Juvenile
Services has acknowledged it exercises no supervision over staff
training at Bowling Brook and the roughly 20 other private
facilities it licenses -- though it places hundreds of children in
state custody with them.
Backers of the legislation hope
public concern will give momentum to the proposed legislation,
similar versions of which have failed in the past. "The tragedy at
Bowling Brook will have a major impact on the debate this year,"
said the bill's lead sponsor, Sen. Bobby A. Zirkin, a Baltimore
County Democrat.
Jim McComb, who heads an
association of private residential programs for youth, said his
association supports more regulation of training, particularly in
restraining techniques.
"Anybody can claim to do this
restraint training," said McComb, executive director of Maryland
Association of Resources for Family and Youth. "The only people who
should be allowed to do it are people who have been somehow approved
by the state."
Youth welfare advocates welcomed
the legislation, which would require direct-care workers at
residential facilities be at least 21 years old and receive
instruction only from state-approved trainers.
"When you put a child in an
organization run by private industry, but they have a state
contract, why shouldn't they be subject to the same standards as the
Department of Juvenile Services?" said Kimberly M. Armstrong of the
Maryland Juvenile Justice Coalition. "You may have a child who would
still be here if the staff had known how to react to him in a proper
manner."
Bowling Brook officials have said
in written statements that Simmons was restrained by "senior staff
of the highest caliber with advanced training." They have also
"categorically" denied that workers knelt or sat on Simmons' back
while he was facedown, as several student eyewitnesses have told The
Sun and their lawyers in the Maryland public defender's office.
A former Bowling Brook counselor
who worked there for three months in 2004 told The Sun this week
that he routinely saw other counselors kneel on students backs while
they were facedown.
"I've seen knees on backs, knees on
butts, knees on legs," said Micah Mincey, who works as a public
school substitute teacher in Savannah, Ga. "Sometimes it would be a
knee on the back, just enough to get [a student] calm, but if a
person was squirming and trying to get up" then the weight was
applied longer, he said.
Medical experts say that putting
pressure on a person's back while he is positioned on his stomach --
especially after a period of intense physical exertion -- can cause
cardiac arrest. The medical examiner has not released a cause of
death for Simmons. The death is being investigated by the Carroll
County sheriff's office.
Mincey said he quit his job as
"counselor-teacher" at Bowling Brook after his supervisors quarreled
with him about completing some paperwork. He said he was not trained
by Bowling Brook, but arrived at the job with restraint training
from Sheppard Pratt hospital, where he had worked with mentally ill
patients.
Current regulations require that
staff at state-licensed private facilities pass criminal background
checks; direct-care workers under age 21 must have an associate of
arts degree, while those over 21 must have at least a high school
diploma or equivalent. Workers must also have 40 hours of training,
including in restraint techniques, but the training is neither
supervised nor approved by the state.
A fiscal analysis last year did not
put a dollar amount on its cost, but said the effect on small
businesses that provide residential care would be "meaningful." The
cost of developing training programs would likely be passed onto the
state, the analysis said.
Del. Peter A. Hammen, a Baltimore
Democrat who supports the bill and chairs the House committee where
it will be heard, expressed hope that its cost would not preclude
its passage this year.
"We have to be extremely careful
with what we pass, with regards to how much it costs. But we also
have to understand how important the issue is to the citizens of
Maryland," Hammen said.
A spokesman for Gov. Martin
O'Malley, a Democrat, said reform of the juvenile justice system is
a top priority, but that it is too early to weigh in on specific
proposals. "It's something that we will work with Senator Zirkin
on," Rick Abbruzzese said.
O'Malley's choice for juvenile
services secretary, Donald W. Devore, met this week with Zirkin and
the governor to discuss the proposal. "This is something that
Secretary Devore will work with the General Assembly on, and at the
appropriate time, make a recommendation to the governor," Abbruzzese
said.
gadi.dechter@baltsun.com
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