Agency seeks to improve delinquent care
The not-for-profit agency operating facilities for troubled teens in Niagara and Cattaraugus counties reacted to a critical state report Friday by saying it is taking steps to correct situations that led to a near-riot in Randolph in May and a homicide in Lockport in June.
James W. Coder, chief executive officer of New Directions Youth and Family Services, said the agency has been working since the summer to improve the way it handles the teenage delinquents it is sent. County social services departments, school districts and the state Office of Children and Family Services refer teens to the Randolph Childrens Home, Wyndham Lawn Home for Children in Lockport and three residential boarding houses.
Avenue House, the New Directions group home in Lockport, was shut down after counselor Renee C. Greco, 24, of Buffalo, was bludgeoned to death there June 8. Two Rochester teenagers have been charged with murder.
Coder said New Directions rejects teenagers it regards as too violent, although he declined to comment on the specific cases of Anthony J. Allen and Robert J. Thousand, who are charged with killing Greco. We would not take a kid who was actively psychotic, Coder said, adding that it receives a file on each prospective resident except in emergency placement situations.
The Office of Children and Family Services 21-page report found that New Directions had no policy for monitoring the presence of contraband or objects that could be used as weapons. Greco was killed with a large piece of wood the assailants found in the basement of the house. Staffers at Wyndham Lawn use walkie-talkies as their only means of emergency communications, but they often cut out, the report said. Workers at two Southern Tier group homes, interviewed two days after Greco was killed, told the inspectors they felt safe at work but were more vigilant than before.
Besides the state report, the Buffalo office of the U. S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration is investigating New Directions because of the killing of Greco. Its report is due by December, officials there said. The report zeroed in on Randolph as New Directions most troubled facility. State inspectors interviewed one teen who had spent time there and in Wyndham Lawn. He noted very clearly that he received consequences for behaviors at Wyndham Lawn that he did not have at Randolph, the report said.
Coder cautioned against taking what a teenager says at face value, but he said its apparent that if disciplinary measures are different between the two facilities, it would be caused by differing staff attitudes.
During a focus group interview with Randolph residents, inspectors were told by the teens that some staffers there try to instigate trouble, which led to more incidents of physical restraints. There were 157 such incidents at Randolph in the year that ended in June, as opposed to 63 at Wyndham Lawn. Randolph, however, is licensed for 82 beds, as opposed to 38 at Wyndham.
On a per-bed basis, the largest number of physical restraint cases came at Titan House, a 17- bed facility for hard-to-place youths on the Wyndham Lawn campus. Despite the small numbers, there were 89 restraint incidents there in a year.
Coder blamed the runaway problems at Randolph on a ring of troublemakers who have since been transferred out. With the cohort of children we had at the time, it became part of the culture, he said. We had a few ringleaders. In February, after a spike in AWOLs, Randolph Childrens Home installed alarms on outside doors and replaced windows adjacent to doors with solid walls. That didnt prevent 14 teens from absconding on one weekend in May.
The report said the program director was away that weekend and couldnt be reached, even though supervisors decided extra staff was needed. The director hadnt told Coder about the need for more workers. When police rounded up the 14 runaways and returned them all at once, a near-riot occurred, the report said. In the past five months [since then] we had only three kids go AWOL, Coder said.
The report also called on New Directions to improve its relationship with the community around Randolph. Coder said he has spoken to town, village and school officials, has frequent reports at their board meetings and is working to repair the relations with local police agencies.
Coder said New Directions has applied to reduce the number of licensed beds at Randolph from 82 to 60. Were receiving fewer referrals and fewer appropriate referrals, he said. In general, were not accepting kids who have an IQ below a certain level where we can educate them effectively, he said. Teens with serious medical problems also are ruled out.
Thomas J. Prohaska
17 October 2009
http://www.buffalonews.com/cityregion/niagaracounty/story/830528.html?imw=Y
