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.
