Salina JournalFormer staffer dishes dirt on academy2/27/2009
Former staffer dishes dirt on academyBy DAVID CLOUSTON
Salina Journal
ESBON -- Lea Daniels had had all she could take the day she walked off the job at the White Rock Academy in Esbon.
The male staffers had taken the boys somewhere -- she wasn't sure where -- leaving her alone and in charge of a handful of adolescent girls who were growing increasingly agitated. One of the girls, Daniels knew, was taking lithium and had severe mental problems and violent tendencies. On one occasion the girl had elbow-punched Daniels in the stomach.
"I complained to Ted (Madsen, one of the facility owners) and reminded him that he had told me he would not accept 'patients,' just 'students,' and he told me the only reason they took her was because they needed the money," Daniels said.
Daniels says she was not given a policy handbook or any training after she took the job at the residential treatment center for troubled adolescents ages 11 to 18.
When the male staffers and their charges returned, she walked out the front door.
"They just totally misrepresented themselves," she said, of the operators.
The facility was closed down by Kansas Department of Health and Environment officials last week after multiple allegations of health and safety code violations dating back to September.
KDHE spokesman Mike Heideman said this week that the White Rock Academy has complied with orders to remove the remaining 24 students from the academy to either their parents' custody or another facility.
So far, the operators have not filed a request for an appeal hearing on the state's suspension order, he said.
Programs not providedAmong a long list of alleged violations by the facility, KDHE charged that youths from out of state did not have Kansas authorities' permission to be admitted to a Kansas facility, that staff locked emergency exit doors even after being told not to do so and that intensive mental health and drug treatment were not provided.
The White Rock Academy was housed in the former White Rock Middle School. The building's transformation to a treatment center promised to help the town recover from the closure of the school in 2006, when the White Rock and Mankato school districts consolidated.
Esbon, population about 130, is located about 12 miles northwest of Mankato in Jewell County, not far from the Nebraska border.
Catering to parents and guardians of troubled teens, the White Rock Academy charged $4,000 a month tuition, plus a fee of $9,000 for new students, said Kevin DeYoung. DeYoung, of Victor, N.Y., sent his 17-year-old daughter, Kristie, to the facility for five months, for behavior problems.
Unqualified workersDaniels, 49, of Alpine, Texas, who worked previously as a certified public accountant, answered a newspaper ad placed by White Rock for a facility administrator.
She said that instead, she was hired to provide direct care to the youths housed there, with the promise that she would become administrator in the future. The Madsens told her they needed an administrator with a college degree.
Daniels worked for White Rock from January through April 2007. Todd Madsen, Ted's son, lived in Esbon and had most of the day-to-day supervision of the academy.
"He ran the place and made the rules," she said of the younger Madsen, who was in his 20s. "All the girls fell in love with him and all the boys idolized him."
There were five girls and four or five boys when the academy first opened its doors that spring, Daniels said. But the number dwindled, until only two or three youths were left.
"That's when they started accepting the more mentally challenged kids," Daniels said.
Various backgroundsThere was just one other staff member with college experience, Daniels said. The woman, who was working toward a degree, served as the facility's teacher. Daniels said the therapist did not have a college degree and the "kitchen lady" was not a trained dietitians.
The other adults working at White Rock, including those with direct responsibility for the residents' care, mostly had backgrounds in construction and odd jobs, Daniels said.
Efforts to reach a representative of the facility were unsuccessful. Attorney Kevin Phillips, of Mankato, who has been retained in the past to represent the facility on state allegations, offered to try to make contact with the owners, but no calls were received.
Daniels said she worked 40 hours from Friday through Sunday.
"You're tired, you're worn out and not much good to the kids," she said.
The doors to the gymnasium were chained and locked, and both residents and staff were restricted from certain parts of the building, Daniels said.
"Another girl (staff member) and I left at the same time," Daniels said. "She called the health department and we were hoping they would send a child in there, undercover, just to see how they were running the place."
Worked on their ownResidents' schooling consisted of an online curriculum they completed on their own, she said. Residents filled other hours playing cards and games and writing letters to their parents. The letters were read by staff before they were mailed.
"When the kids would talk to their parents, the owner and the therapist were on the line listening," Daniels said. "And if anything got said even remotely derogatory about the facility, the phone got hung up."
"I was told that our school work would transfer to my school in New York. But nothing really counted. I got behind," Kristie DeYoung said.
DeYoung said her parents were looking online for an option to get her help for behavior problems. They were impressed by White Rock's Web site, which showed smiling photographs of residents feeding calves, riding horses and doing outdoor projects.
What DeYoung said she experienced instead was no structure, almost no exercise or outdoor time and unhealthy food.
"There were 20 kids there and only two staff members to keep them all under control," she said.
Ten girls slept in one room with bunk beds. Space was cramped. The food, she said, was homemade but unhealthy.
"They served like pizzas, pastas. A lot was microwaveable stuff," DeYoung said. "There were no fresh fruits and vegetables. A lot of girls requested more healthier food options, but nothing was done."
Happy daughter is homeHer parents removed her from the facility after five months, over the objection of the school's director, Stuart Vance. Her situation with her parents has improved, she said.
"I had to realize and make the changes myself," DeYoung said. "None of the staff or the program helped."
Her father, Kevin, said the staff at White Rock demonstrated great concern for the residents.
"They really cared about the kids," he said. But Vance "didn't seem very available for the kids."
Kevin DeYoung also said his family was misled by White Rock's advertising -- "I thought there would be more therapy involved," he said.
"My experience? On the whole, I can't knock it because I got my daughter back and she's living at home," he said. "I had had enough, and she had had enough and I needed to get her back in my family and that's what I did."
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Reporter David Clouston can be reached at 822-1403 or by e-mail at [email protected].Copyright © 2008 Salina Journal and MediaSpan
