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Injury at Reform School
Probed
Saturday, June 25, 2005
By Barbara White Stack,
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
State police and the
Department of Public Welfare are investigating an incident at a
Butler County reform school last weekend that left a West Virginia
teen with more than 20 stitches in his face.
Officials at The Summit
Academy, a residential school for delinquent boys, told welfare
investigators that the teen's face-first crash through a glass cover
on a fire hose cabinet was an accident. But doctors at Children's
Hospital apparently don't believe that.
After treating Devon
Cooper's disfiguring wounds Saturday night, the hospital reported
the incident to ChildLine. Doctors are required by state law to
inform ChildLine when they believe a youngster has been abused by a
parent or caretaker, such as staff at a reform school. Physicians
aren't required to report what they believe are accidents.
In addition, Children's
Hospital refused to send 17-year-old Cooper, of Charles Town, W.Va.,
back to the facility with staff member Joe Vacanti, who had driven
him to Pittsburgh after he was injured about 9 p.m.
Vacanti was one of two
workers directly involved in the incident, but according to an
academy spokesman, Vacanti was not the one who "put his hands on the
child" during the confrontation.
Hospital officials called
Summit and demanded that another staff member drive from the school
in Summit Township to pick up Cooper.
Children's Hospital declined
to discuss the case, citing federal confidentiality regulations. The
academy refused to allow a reporter to speak with Cooper, noting
that state law prevents the school from even acknowledging Cooper is
a student. And both staff members involved, Vacanti and Dave Akers,
said they would not talk about it.
The Summit suspended the
two, but they're still being paid, according to Joseph Daugerdas, a
spokesman for the nonprofit corporation that operates The Summit
Academy and The Academy, a South Hills program that delinquents
attend after school and on weekends.
Daugerdas said it is routine
for staff to be suspended with pay while such an incident is
investigated by The Summit and by welfare officials. "We do not want
them around students until we can really find out what happened," he
said.
The Summit has filed a
report with the state on the incident. It says staff member Vacanti
confronted Cooper about going into another child's room when Cooper
was supposed to be in bed in his own quarters. Then Akers, a
supervisor, intervened.
The report says Cooper
"became aggressive and pushed away from the supervisor. [Cooper]
lost his balance and fell into a glass cover for a fire hose
receptacle injuring the side of his face and ear."
That, however, is not the
kind of incident that certain officials, such as doctors, are
required by state law to report to ChildLine. They must call in when
they have "reasonable cause to suspect that a child has been
abused." And, the law says, abuse is "non-accidental serious
physical injury."
Daugerdas said that if The
Summit determined that staff members involved in a confrontation
with a student failed to follow proper procedures, they could be
fired.
In addition, he said if a
welfare investigation found that a staff member abused a child, the
worker would be fired.
The Summit can house as many
as 350 boys. Most are delinquents, but its license from the Welfare
Department permits it to accept youngsters abused or neglected by
their parents. Summit charges the counties that send boys about $90
a day.
There are 263 boys living at
the school, including 53 from Allegheny County, 127 from
Philadelphia and 16 from West Virginia, Ohio and Washington, D.C.,
also send youngsters there.
John Law, a spokesman for
the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources, said he
could not discuss an individual child's case. But in general, when a
youngster is seriously injured in placement, West Virginia could
send a caseworker to the school to investigate or it could bring the
child back to the state to hear his side of the story in a setting
away from the facility where he was hurt.
"We would look very closely
at the provider" to see whether the facility is safe, Law said.
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(Barbara White Stack can be
reached at bwhitestack@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1878.)
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