A spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, the umbrella agency over the Youth Services Division, acknowledged that the transition would be challenging but said the youthful offenders living at the center are safe. The division is responsible for the center.
“We are staffed out at the facility. We have nursing personnel. We have a nursing supervisor,” said Julie Munsell. “Our primary concern was that the health and safety of the children was being taken care of, and we’ve been able to certainly manage that.”
Also on Monday, Health and Human Services officials and representatives from the Little Rock-based Disability Rights Center agreed to work together to improve the juvenile justice system in Arkansas. It was the group’s first meeting since issuing a critical report obtained by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on Saturday.
That report detailing education and mental-health care problems at the facility came a day after Health and Human Services terminated its contract to run the facility with Cornell Cos. Inc. because of allegations that nurses were inappropriately injecting children with pschyotropic drugs to control unruly behavior.
Gov. Mike Huckabee said Monday that he has received a preliminary report from the Arkansas State Police regarding what happened but would not release any information because a criminal investigation is ongoing.
“We’re taking very dramatic actions to remedy these problems,” Huckabee said in a telephone interview. “This is not a small thing. We didn’t just send somebody out there to ask a few questions. This is a serious investigation.”
State officials have said that in “many” of the 63 cases from Sept. 1 to mid-October, when children were injected, there either were no doctor’s orders or the shots were done against the child’s will or in violation of facility policy.
Since the state’s decision on Friday to terminate the contract with Cornell, which has been running the facility for five years, the nursing supervisor “walked off” the job, Munsell said. Three other nurses have been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation.
Two nurses remain on staff. The state has hired temporary nurses from a nursing agency to fill in the gaps, Munsell and ombudsman Scott Tanner said. A nurse who works for the Conway Human Development Center, another state facility, is serving temporarily as the nurses ’ manager.
Because of the number of medical policies and the sheer size of the campus in Saline County, Tanner said the nurses may face difficulties.
“It’s a large campus that will require orientation. There are lots of policies to know in order to know when to administer medication,” said Tanner, ombudsman for juveniles in state care. “So in the short run, yes, I am concerned.”
On Monday, for example, Tanner said nurses from an agency showed up to work but did not have keys to the medicine cabinet for several hours.
In addition, Tanner said that employees at the facility aren’t sure what is going to happen to them or their jobs.
“A lot of workers are concerned about employment. Should they look for jobs ?” Tanner said.
“What I witnessed during last transition [when the state gave control of the facility to Cornell ], kids were placed in harm’s way just because direct care staff was not showing up to work or not being motivated at work.”
But Munsell said she wanted to assure Arkansans that employees are with the children at all times and that the state is working diligently to ensure the transition is as smooth as possible.
As of now, the employees at the center technically still work for Cornell and they remain on Cornell’s payroll. Munsell said she isn’t yet sure when employees will come under state employment.
“We are attempting to make the transition as quickly as possible. Because we do have to ensure the care of kids out there, we don’t have a hard and fast deadline,” she said. “We are meeting with each shift. We... wanted them to know as we make this transition, whether to another private provider or a state-run facility, those who wanted to continue to work out there and who were committed to the quality of work we need, we wanted to keep them.”
During the meeting on Monday with the Disability Rights Center, which found dozens of flaws in the education, special education and mental health systems at the facility, Health and Human Services officials agreed to work with the advocacy group to fix problems with the entire juvenile justice system in Arkansas.
For several months, Munsell said, her agency has been working on a “master plan” to improve both the kinds of services offered to youthful offenders in state care as well as the buildings where they live and learn. Eventually, that may mean closing the facility in Alexander.
“We don’t have any answers yet,” Munsell said. “We’re getting close, we believe.”
Dana McClain, senior attorney with the Disability Rights Center, said after the meeting that she is pleased that the state is eager to make changes and to listen to her group’s concerns.
McClain said she thinks closing Alexander is a good idea but that it won’t solve all the problems in the juvenile justice system.
“Although the [Disability Rights Center ] is in agreement with closing down Alexander, simply building a new facility does not ensure good care and treatment or rehabilitation.”