http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/jersey/in ... xml&coll=1Changes have improved conditions for troubled teenagers at VisionQuest
Thursday, July 24, 2008
BY SUSAN K. LIVIO
Star-Ledger Staff
VisionQuest, once the state's largest privately run treatment center for troubled teens, is much safer than it was 15 months ago because it dramatically reduced the number of children it serves and retrained its staff, according to a report released yesterday by the Office of the Child Advocate.
"Alarming" safety and supervision problems made public last year by then-Child Advocate E. Susan Hodgson year have diminished because the state required the Burlington County program to cut its capacity from 110 children to 40, according to the report, "Reforming VisionQuest."
VisionQuest made the changes under the supervision of an independent monitor in tandem with the child advocate and the Department of Children and Families, which agreed to temporarily halt admissions in April 2007 at the advocate's urging.
The result: staff physically restrained kids 15 times in the first three months of this year, compared to 276 times during the same period in 2007. Children ran away only twice in the first two months of 2008 compared to the 189 times in early 2007. Employee turnover dropped from 10 percent to 4 percent from May 2007 to May 2008.
"Without a strong, collaborative reform effort, the program could have been forced to cease caring for these children, limiting treatment options for New Jersey's vulnerable youth," said Ronald Chen, the state Public Advocate who was named acting Child Advocate last week after Hodgson resigned.
Implementing the reforms was "painful" at times, but VisionQuest CEO Peter Ranalli said the program is vastly better for both children and his employees.
Some children remained at VisionQuest for a year or more -- long past the time they should have been reassigned to a less-intensive placement closer to home, Ranalli said. With the state's help, more kids now are transferred out when they are clinically ready. "All of the kids now have to have an aftercare plan, and we are really discharging these kids in under a year," Ranalli said.
He attributed worker retention to "better training, and a smaller number of kids."
"The staff have worked really hard," Ranalli said. "I'm happy we were given the opportunity to show what we can do." But Ranalli said in its reduced form, VisionQuest "Pathfinders" in Winslow Township is "not an economically viable program." He wants permission to add up to 20 more children. A year's stay at VisionQuest costs the state $111,270 per child.
The monitor, Leta Smith, the former mental health director for the New York State Office of Children's Services, will continue working with VisionQuest into 2009, the report said.
The advocate suggested the state develop an early warning system that can alert it to mounting problems at all state-licensed facilities "before they reach a crisis level," the report said. The advocate also offered its assistance in building community support so more group facilities for kids are permitted to open.
The advocate's report may be found at
http://www.state.nj.us/childadvocate/publications/PDFs/VQReport%20Final%207-23-08.pdf.
