Mistreatment

A specific Youth Counselor (YC) that gets in fist fights with youth in an area
where there is no surveillance camera.

a A specific Social Worker caught with a youth's hand on her upper thigh during a
meeting. Youth also report getting contraband from her.

a A specific YC in the midst of disciplinary proceedings because he was reported
to administration for telling a youth to kill himself multiple times. The YC is
disputing the discipline because it is common practice for YCs to tell children to
kill themselves and those other YCs do not get in trouble.

Contraband (porn, cigarettes, cell phones) being given to youth from YCs and
maintenance men.

a A specific YC breaking a child's arm during a take down and bragging about it.

A specific YC speaking to the boys with inappropriate language about their
private parts and being perverts.

Youth in the Sanctions Living Unit being locked in their room for 24 hours and
only letting the children out to run on the treadmill/elliptical or use the rest room
even though some of the mentally ill children want to just sit and look out the
window or write letters home.

a One youth left in room for over 72 hours and punished him for not coming out of
his room by giving him more confinement hours. 

One mentally ill youth was sent to security against advice and after
24 hours had completely decompensated to the point of rocking in the fetal
position and mumbling. Youth reported staff made fun of him for being slow and
were harassing him. staff stepped in and moved the child. A specific
YC yelled at that staff and later someone called that staff member
and told them to not come to the cottage anymore when that YC is working.

One fabricates and falsifies medical records regarding when they
saw youth, who they saw, etc. Sometimes this doctor has filled out forms for
youth they have never even seen.

a Youth are rarely seen by the It is possible that right now there is
no currently providing therapy at the facility.

Youth are often denied mental health care because the school tries to take
precedence and makes it extremely difficult to see youth.

If a living unit is on lock down, youth are not allowed to go to their therapy
appointments, but can still go to their medical appointments.

Policy for adult institution is that treatment social workers are to be supervised by
the department so treatment is up to date and treatment providers
are receiving supervision. DJC does not have their own policy. Currently social
workers are supervised by a Living Unit Manager. Living Unit Managers are
under the supervision of Security and have no treatment training or experience.

a Management is aware of all of these problems. Typically when management
becomes aware of a problem, the problem just gets worse.

 

Programming

- Children sometimes wait two to three months to get into programming.
a When not in class or programming, children are kept in their rooms, which is
increasingly more and more because of the teacher staffing problem.

Educa?on

Currently working with a skeleton staff with no focus, unity, or real support.

. No substitute teachers. Teachers often call in sick or take vacation and if that
teacher is gone, there is no substitute to have class that day.

inconsistent reprimanding of teachers by administration.

a Some teachers have never had a formal observation of their teaching. Some
have been given a form about an observation/evaluation, discussed it, and then
signed it.

Haven?t had a full teaching staff in over a year.

9 Education administrators rolling eyes and making comments about one teacher
in front of other teachers and employees.

Students caught with contraband are told who to say gave it to them and are
threatened with losing their release date if they refuse to lie.

Teachers afraid of retaliation and being targeted by other employees.

- Teaches with same'classification having varied work loads and no accountability
for keeping grades, attendance, hours of teaching, etc.

No formal observations or evaluations of some teachers.

a Major divide between living unit staff and teaching staff.

a Teachers being targeted and micromanaged out of the institution.