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City stays course at Tenn. child
center
Though a teen's death there was ruled a homicide, DHS said the rest
of its youths couldn't be removed any faster
October 11, 2007
By John Sullivan and Craig R. McCoy
City officials said yesterday that
they would not immediately remove children from a Tennessee juvenile
facility despite a ruling this week that the death of a Philadelphia
teen in June was a homicide. The autopsy report says Omega Leach,
17, died of strangulation after a struggle with staff at the Chad
Youth Enhancement Center outside Nashville.
Officials with the city's
Department of Human Services said they had already removed more than
30 children from Chad since the death, and visited the residential
center for emotionally troubled children weekly.
The transfers of the seven who
remain there are expected to be completed next month, although three
have asked to stay, DHS officials said. No parent has asked that a
child be moved.
"The goal remains to find suitable
accommodations to meet the very complex emotional and psychological
needs of these children," acting DHS Commissioner Arthur C. Evans
Jr. said.
Neither employee in the Leach case
is there now, DHS noted.
DHS and the city's Family Court
judges send children in their custody to Chad. Last month,
Administrative Court Judge Kevin Dougherty ordered eight children
removed and has since transferred others. Dougherty could not be
reached for comment yesterday.
Chad still has a valid license but
may not accept new admissions, Tennessee child-welfare officials
said.
"The suspension of admissions that
we put in place in June remains in effect indefinitely," said Jill
Hudson, a spokeswoman for the Tennessee Department of Mental Health
and Developmental Disabilities. Her office is awaiting the results
of a state investigation, she said.
Experts agreed that placing
difficult children could be tricky.
"Although it seems outrageous and
inconceivable that the city would not have acted sooner to move the
children, moving them has its own consequences," said Richard
Gelles, dean of the School of Social Policy and Practice at the
University of Pennsylvania.
Unless the children are in
immediate danger, he said, the city wouldn't move them without
making sure they could be placed in a suitable facility.
Marc Cherna, who directs the
child-welfare agency in the Pittsburgh area, said the medical
examiner's report underscored the need for Philadelphia officials
"to try to change their practice to keep their kids close to home."
Meanwhile, Edith Pearce, an
attorney for the Leach family, said yesterday that the District
Attorney's Office in Tennessee had told her that it was "seeking to
make sure justice was done."
The district attorney there, John
Carney, was not available for comment.
Tennessee child-welfare officials
cited Chad staff for needlessly provoking Leach into a fight. He was
calming down in his room when a worker ordered him to leave. The two
struggled, and a second staffer joined in. The two told
investigators that they had followed Chad policy by placing Leach in
a prone restraint as outlined by the Handle With Care program.
Bruce Chapman, 55, the president of
the company that trained the workers, said his restraint technique
should never result in a death when properly applied.
"There is nothing in Handle With
Care that would account for that," he said of the strangulation
finding.
Chapman advocates the use of
restraints at a time when states such as Pennsylvania are reducing
reliance on them.
He runs a Web site called
"Compassionate Neanderthal," which he said illustrated that even
Neanderthals had enough sense to intervene physically when children
were a threat to themselves or others.
The problem of abuse at residential
facilities is not isolated, according to a report released yesterday
by the Government Accountability Office. The GAO found thousands of
allegations of abuse, including some deaths, at residential
treatment centers across the country between 1990 and 2007.
Allegations included 1,619
incidents of abuse in 33 states. In a review of just 10 deaths, the
office found ineffective management and reckless and negligent
operating practices. The findings relate to boot camps, academies,
and wilderness therapy programs, among others.
While most states license such
facilities, some don't, and there are no federal regulations.
"There is a Russian roulette
quality to these places, because there are no national standards
that these facilities have to meet," Penn's Gelles said.
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