Daystar Caught Abusing Again

[FreeOfCC]

Forced to Fight
by Emily Ramshaw and Terri Langford, Houston Chronicle
June 6, 2010  
 
Enlarge photo by: Nick de la Torre / The Houston Chronicle
The Dystar Residential Inc. campus, in Manvel, photographed on Friday, June 4, 2010.
Workers at a center for distressed children provoked seven developmentally disabled girls into a fight of biting and bruising, while they laughed, cheered and promised the winners a precious prize: after-school snacks.

Four of the girls were injured, according to records obtained by The Texas Tribune and the Houston Chronicle. State officials learned of the incident at Daystar Residential Inc. in Manvel the day after it occurred when a Daystar employee doing health checks found bite marks, scrapes and bruises on the girls’ bodies.

The fight was one of more than 250 incidents of confirmed abuse and mistreatment in residential treatment centers over the last two years, based on the Tribune/Chronicle review of state records.

But unlike last year’s scandal at the Corpus Christi State School, where staffers were found to have forced mentally disabled adults to fight one another, there were no impassioned calls for reform. No criminal indictments sought against the perpetrators. And no lawmakers publicly grilling a state agency about how it could have happened.

Instead, the two staffers at Daystar, a child residential treatment center located 30 minutes south of Houston, were quietly fired after the fight in 2008.

To this day, the names of the pair — a dorm supervisor and another female worker — are kept secret by the Department of Family and Protective Services, even though the center, contracted by the state to provide care, has received $16 million in taxpayer money since 2006.

“Why I’m outraged is, the department hid this from us,” said state Rep. Patrick Rose, D-Dripping Springs. “This is another example of us having to find out about systemic failures through the press, as opposed to pro-actively from the department … We could’ve fixed this problem last session when we were addressing a very similar issue.”

Residential treatment center records reviewed by The Texas Tribune/Houston Chronicle show state investigators confirmed hundreds of violations from mid 2008 through April of this year — at least 250 of them involving abuse, neglect and mistreatment. All of the centers remain in operation today.

Workers choked and punched kids to get them to behave. Children who were supposed to be supervised attempted suicide. Kids were threatened with corporal punishment and forced to strip down to their underwear so they wouldn’t run away. In some cases, residents engaged in sexual acts with peers, with staff members, and in one case, with a staffer’s relative.
In the past five years, six facilities — three of them in Houston — have been shut down or denied a license renewal. But it’s unclear exactly what triggers the closures; other facilities remain open or face no sanctions despite suicides attempts and other serious abuse incidents.

In the staged fight at Daystar in April 2008, state inspection records show the two employees gathered the seven “developmentally delayed” girls, ranging in age from 12 to 17, and forced them to fight.

DFPS investigated, confirmed the abuse, and cited Daystar over several deficiencies — but didn’t put the facility on suspension or probation.

Daystar attorney John Carsey said the state’s conclusions are “misleading and frankly incorrect.” He said the company fired two female employees who failed to intervene in a shoving match between two girls — not seven — that resulted in some hair-pulling, and nothing more.

“Nobody got hurt,” said Carsey, who declined to provide copies of the company’s internal investigation.

DFPS stands by its findings. “We are very disappointed in Daystar’s characterization of this very serious incident, and their criticism of our investigation,” said Sasha Rasco, DFPS’ assistant commissioner of child care licensing. “These employees staged a fight between these children, and cheered as the fight occurred. A medical examination found four of the girls were injured.”

DFPS did not revisit the fight club incident — or report it up the chain — in early 2009, when police stumbled on cell phone videos of workers at the Corpus Christi State School forcing profoundly disabled residents to fight each other.

“Nobody ever came up from [DFPS] and told us,” said Jay Kimbrough, who was Gov. Rick Perry’s chief of staff when the Corpus Christi fight club news broke. “And fight club was a magic phrase, a defined term at that point.”

The Corpus Christi fights, staged the same spring the DayStar incident occurred, brought inflamed criticism from those in the disability community, prompted Perry to place a moratorium on state school admissions, and led to the conviction of six workers on charges of injury to a disabled person.

The state poured money into the Department of Aging and Disability Services, which oversees state schools, to install security cameras and other safety measures.
DFPS “should’ve stepped up and said, ‘This is bad, this is evil, and we are holding everyone accountable,’ ” said Jeff Garrison-Tate, whose non-profit Community Now! works for people with disabilities. “You think, ‘How could it get worse than the Corpus Christi fight club?’ Only in Texas could it get worse.”

Since 2006, RTCs have received more than $300 million to care for the most troubled or disabled children taken into foster care. Children placed at an RTC are there because basic care for them is not enough. They are likely to bear deeper emotional scars and some, in social worker parlance, “act out, sexually.”

Others have turned to alcoholism or drug addition. Some struggle with depression or developmental disabilities.

“Each child in one of these facilities is troubled, typically with serious emotional disturbance and/or mental health issues,” explained DFPS spokesman Patrick Crimmins. “These centers are designed to provide treatment for them.”

The state contracts with about 80 RTCs, nearly half of which are in the Houston area.
The state workers at the Corpus Christi State School were arrested and later convicted of felonies. DFPS officials say they referred the Daystar matter to local law enforcement. But both the Manvel Police Department and the Brazoria County Sheriff’s Office say they never received any notification.

DFPS refused to release the report it filed with law enforcement and said it couldn't prove notification was sent; the agency deletes all faxed records after 30 days.
The Tribune/Chronicle review of state inspection reports and other records revealed dozens of incidents of serious abuse and neglect, including physical beatings, and failing to report attempted suicides and allegations of sexual assault.

Un-monitored youth escaped, stole vehicles, and started fires. Staff failed to report sexual contact among young kids, and provided others with alcohol and illegal drugs.
Workers punished kids with dangerous physical restraints or long periods of confinement — sometimes without their clothes. Among the incidents:
* At the Brookhaven facility in McLennan County, a child who was supposed to be monitored at all times left the room and attempted to hang himself with his shoelaces. A second child swallowed 30 psychotropic pills. Within months of those incidents, a staffer choked a child and struck him with a milk crate.
* At Houston’s Serenity residential treatment center, staffers forced residents to strip down to their boxers and take off their shoes to prevent them from running away.
* At the Avalon Center in Eddy, staff didn’t intervene when a young girl ran into the highway and yelled for oncoming traffic to hit her.
* A staffer slammed a door on a resident’s head at the Guardian Angels residential treatment center in Houston.

DFPS insists that disciplinary actions do not have to take the form of license suspensions to improve care. In the incidents above, Crimmins said three firings resulted and center policies were changed.

DFPS officials do say, however, there should have been a more elaborate investigation into the Daystar incident.

“We should have conducted more follow-up, with interviews of the children and other Daystar employees to make sure that this was an isolated incident, and to make sure that there was nothing in the prior performance of the two employees that might have indicated problems,” Crimmins said.

The fired Daystar employees’ names were added to Texas’ abuse/neglect registry, which means they shouldn’t be hired to work in direct care again.
“We believe this operation acted appropriately in response to this incident,” Crimmins said. “It is not a perfect system, but our goal is constant improvement, and to make these operations as safe as possible."

Rose, who chairs the House Human Services Committee, said he intends to make some safeguards mandatory, including forcing RTCs to pay for FBI background checks for all employees, and ordering state investigators to conduct surprise inspections within 30 days of an abuse incident.
[Rose, you're a fucking idiot, closet apologist. Facilities already pay for FBI background checks and are subject to surprise inspections following a report of abuse.]

“My office, our committee, will work to move the department in this direction immediately,” Rose said. “Unless we’re made aware of the problems, we’re left responding to them, as opposed to fixing them. Here, clearly, the department did a poor job of reporting systemic failure to the Legislature.”
Alexa Garcia-Ditta and Rachel Kraft contributed to this report.

[FreeOfCC]

State halts placements at 'fight club' children's facility
By TERRI LANGFORD and EMILY RAMSHAW
HOUSTON CHRONICLE and TEXAS TRIBUNE
June 15, 2010, 12:12AM
Share Del.icio.usDiggTwitterYahoo! BuzzFacebookStumbleUponEmail Close [X]Texas officials have banned the placement of foster care children at a Houston-area residential treatment center and assigned a state monitor to oversee care following revelations of a staff-instigated "fight-club" incident in 2008 and recent allegations of sexual abuse.

In other episodes at Daystar Residential Inc. in Manvel, a child's arm was broken and another attempted suicide, records show.

"Clearly, this is a troubled facility that needs immediate improvement," said Patrick Crimmins, spokesman for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services.

The 2008 incident, in which seven developmentally disabled girls were provoked into a fight by two staffers, was one of 250 serious abuse incidents at RTCs in the past two years, according to a review by the Houston Chronicle and the Texas Tribune that appeared June 6.

Five days later, after meeting with Gov. Rick Perry's staff, DFPS notified Daystar officials by phone and by letter that new foster care placements had been halted in part because of the 2008 fight club episode. Daystar's suspension is also tied to at least three new serious abuse incidents, including a possible sexual assault, that have been reported at the facility in the week since the Chronicle/Tribune story appeared.

"This suspension is based on the serious concerns of DFPS after considering recent Residential Child Care Licensing investigations and for the safety and well-being of children placed with Daystar Residential Inc," wrote Heather Shiels, director of DFPS contracts, to Daystar executive director Cal Salls.

Calls to Salls and Daystar's attorney were not returned on Monday. The state contracts with the privately owned Daystar and 78 other RTCs to care for the most troubled children and teens in foster care.

Rare oversight move
DFPS also will assign Daystar a "service monitor" to watch over the care of the children already living at the center. It is only the second time in its history that agency has turned to a monitor.

The only other time was in 2005 — also against Daystar. Further details about what prompted the 2005 monitor were not available.

In the April 24, 2008 incident, a Daystar supervisor and another worker told the girls - ages 12 to 17 - to fight one another, promising the winners after-school snacks.

At least four of the girls suffered bite marks, bruises and scratches and the employees were fired, according to records.

DFPS Commissioner Anne Heiligenstein, who did not mention the latest allegations when she spoke to a Tribune reporter Monday, said the agency is doing a "very thorough review" of all the children at Daystar in light of the fight club incident.

Other recent allegations
"We have a very heavy presence in any RTC already," she said. "But on that one, as we're doing our review, we are pausing in placing additional children in Daystar."

Heiligenstein said no children will be sent to Daystar until she has all the information she needs, and is "totally satisfied in terms of what is happening in that facility."

"I just want time to be able to do a very thorough review," Heiligenstein said.

Later Monday, the Chronicle/Tribune learned of other recent abuse allegations at Daystar, including four reports of violations relating to a 2009 "inappropriate relationship" between a Daystar employee and a mentally ill 16-year-old female resident. The resident has left the center and moved to California. She did, however, notify San Bernardino County authorities, who then contacted DFPS in January.

DFPS spokesman Patrick Crimmins said the agency was asked not to investigate the matter until California authorities completed their examination. In May, DFPS officials were told they could proceed. But the criminal probe has been transferred to the Brazoria County Sheriff's Office.

Currently, there are 55 foster care children residing at the 141-capacity Daystar, located 30 minutes outside Houston. It receives about $3 million a year from DFPS to care for troubled, abused children who exhibit significant behavior problems.

"We have directed DFPS to take whatever measures necessary to ensure these children are in a safe environment," said Perry spokeswoman Katherine Cesinger. "We expect them to keep us and lawmakers informed of this and any other issues as they arise."

The state House Human Services Committee will review abuse and neglect at state-contracted residential treatment centers at a June 30 meeting.

'I'd shut them down'
DFPS has refused to release the names of the fired Daystar staffers because they are not state employees.

Dennis Borel, executive director of the Coalition for Texans With Disabilities, said sending a monitor and halting Daystar admissions is not enough.

"Given the extent and seriousness of this abuse, its totally inadequate," he said. "This is their opportunity to really make a statement, that abuse of Texas children in any facility will not be tolerated. I'd shut them down."

Texas Tribune reporter Allen Reed contributed to this story

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