These 3 threads from conductdisorders tell how relaxed conditions can be at treatment centers, but also how close a treatment center has to work with the police in order to keep such escapes out of the media. I have not been able to find additional evidence of the incidents.
1.
Kanga's on run2.
And she's gone again....3.
An encore performance....Thread 1:I hate being right. The RTC was giving Kanga 5 minutes of 'unsupervised' free time as she had earned level 2 and girls normally get more free time. I think tonight was her first "5 minutes". She's been gone almost 5 hours. She ran with her "boyfriend". Yep, the one who she has only ever talked to for a few minutes here and there during school. It's about 50 degrees where she is. RTC sent 5 staff members in separate cars to canvas the town and no sight of them. Police were notified immediately (RTC keeps up-to-date digital pictures of the kids so they can text them over to the cops at a moments notice.) Current thought is that they ran the wrong way and instead of heading into town (which is only a 30 minute walk at most) that they headed away from town and are now lost amoung the beautiful, monotonous farmland.
Kanga's mentor (a staff person assigned to be sort of a big brother) is beside himself. He keeps hoping that she's going to walk back in, that they won't have had sex and that she'll have hated run so much she'll never do it again. He has nice dreams, doesn't he? He is such a great guy and he does seem to get Kanga, I think he knows how bad this is and is just so sad.
We're trying very hard not to let the littles overhear anything. DH and I reviewed the plan if she shows up. No child will be left home without an adult until she is found. I doubt she can figure out a way to travel over 300 miles without any money, but that girl is resourseful. My biggest concern is that this wasn't an impulsive run and that she had enough money for a train/bus ticket. We won't know until tomorrow if that was possible.
I told them that if the cops find her and she gives them any lip, I'm 100% find with her spending a few hours in lock-up. Maybe if this first overnight run can be as unpleasant as possible, she'll think twice before running again.
I'm out at the reservation this weekend so I doubt I'll be able to post again until Sunday night. So don't worry if you don't hear anyuthing until then.
They called at 2:30am. The police found them sleeping at a playground.
I think Kanga is in for a big shock. Per the mentor, she will basically go back to the beginning of the program and start over -- level 1, no extras, restricted to campus, etc. Plus her safety plan will be back at 100%. And it is very likely she will be fired from her job (as she already had strikes 1 and 2 plus level 1s can't work).
Kanga was full of attitude when she woke up. Told staff, "I did it, we had sex and now I'm pregnant and you could not stop me."
Mentor-man went off on her:
1. You are not pregnant - you are on birthcontrol.
2. You are in no way ready to care for a baby. You don't care about anyone except yourself.
3. This is not a facility for runners. If you run again, you may find yourself moved to a locked, all-girls facility.
4. You are selfish, you are selfish, you are selfish
She called me demanding to know if we were moving her to 'that place". I had to think fast because, at that point, I didn't know what Mentor had said to her. Luckily I was able to get her to say more and figured it out. She was full of attitude at me about how she is going to go find her 'real mom' cause she'd understand that no one should stop her from doing what she needs to do. I told her that I couldn't force her to make good choices but if she kept making dangerous choices then the adults around her would make her world very small and if the only way to keep her safe was to put her in an out-of-state, all-girls long term locked phosp, then that is where she would go. She said she'd just swing back to girls. Nice.
Conversation ended with me telling her that I was FINISHED with her blatant rejection of this family; DIGUSTED with her nasty choices; INFURIATED that after years and years and over a half of million dollars in treatment, she still was the most self-centered, cruel person I ever met. I told her that she was not to call us again. (I only used one swear word and I wasn't screaming, it was more of a cold fury tone of voice.)
I called Mentor and he said the only thing that seemed to sink into her little brain was the threat to move her so he is focusing on that to try and break her out of her (insert bad word) attitude. He sounded livid at her. He was pulling a double shift so he was going to stay on her case the entire day. I spoke with him later and he said they seemed to be making some progress with her but that they were keeping her on high-risk supervision as she was still threatening to run again.
Thread 2:Kanga ran again. Staff caught her and brought her back. The moment she arrived back on campus,, she ran again and so did two other girls. Her case manager called me from the police station to let me know that they have staff out looking again as well as the police. Two boys also ran tonight but not at the same time as the girls, not the boy she ran with on Friday. They don't think the boys and girls are together unless they ran into each other.
While it is a bit warmer tonight, it has been raining and they are about to be hit by a thunderstorm. Cold+hungry did not bring her home; maybe cold+hungry+WET will do it.
One of the other girls got tired of running and called the home to get picked up. The staff then searched the area around where they got that girl and found Kanga and the other girl.
It sounds like Kanga climbed out her bedroom window for today's first run and then jumped out of the van for her second run.
I'm guessing she's going to run again - cause she is clearly 'enjoying' this.
Thread 3:Kanga ran again last night. They didn't bother to call and wake us up cause they caught her within seconds. She was mad that they were going to make her sleep on the couch again so she assulted staff to get away. Staff caught her at the property line and took her down in a full restraint. A passing driver called 911 (not sure if she though Kanga was being assaulted or if staff needed help). Police came out. Kanga was refusing to go back to the unit so the cops added their persuation and she finally stormed back inside the home.
She was not allowed to go to school/work yesterday or today due to her continued threats to run. (The school sends her work packet over to the home.)
Tdoc told her that she did not think that Kanga could be appropriate to me on the phone, so no call today and likely no call until after we have a treatment team meeting. Tteam meeting should be this week and the goal is to develop a plan to get her to stop running. The home has a good relationship with the police but has had mixed results with the local judges, so DJJ involvement will be discussed and is an inevitability if she doesn't stop escalate, but not the first option. All of her UIRs (unusual incident reports) haven't been turned in yet but it looks like 6 in 72 hours (4 for running, 1 for sexual activity and 1 for physical assault).
Kanga's goals were to get to level 3 and move to the TLP unit by Christmas, get a job off campus and get off her safety plan. Formal goals were to move her to TLP in May, get an off-campus supported job by June, and have a gradual release from the safety plan.
Now she's been dropped back to level 1, she's not allowed out of her unit to the rest of campus, and her safety plan is going to be strengthened. While restricted to unit, she has zero contact with male peers and she is not allowed to speak to her female peers. Yep, I can see how 'doing what she wants' is working for her.
Tdoc said that Kanga is encouraging the other girls to run, trying to incite a mutiny and generally being a complete brat.
