From:
http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs ... /1006/NEWS[qoute]For the past eight months, Michael Talmo has tried his best to fix the Piney Ridge Center, a private, 60-bed juvenile psychiatric treatment facility in Missouri, where allegations of patient abuse, rape, kidnapping and riots have worked against his self-described reputation as a fixer.
The townsfolk living near the facility call it a hellhole.
"That's why they sent me there," Talmo explained. "I was only there eight months."
Located within the city limits of Waynesville, problems at Piney Ridge have strained the scant emergency services of the small town.
In September, one of Talmo's youth care workers was charged with kidnapping and raping a female patient,a 17-year-old who ran away with the staffer voluntarily.
The teen suffered from what one Missouri state trooper described as extreme post-traumatic stress disorder.
Waynesville Police Chief Don McCulloch said "the employee got intimate with one of the patients. It was all voluntarily. She was of age. They're emancipated at 17 in Missouri."
Last month, in the middle of fallout from the Missouri kidnapping case, Talmo was recruited by Vince Meconi, secretary of the Delaware Department of Health and Social Services, to replace Susan Watson Robinson as director of the Delaware Psychiatric Center.
Talmo takes over the Delaware facility in two weeks, armed with assurances from Meconi that he will have the authority and the support needed to make changes.
Meconi said he had "some awareness" there were problems at the Missouri facility and that he knew about the kidnapping and rape charges when he recruited Talmo.
"I heard about that," Meconi said.
The Piney Ridge staffer has pleaded not guilty.
Talmo says he regrets leaving his work in Missouri unfinished. Those who live in Waynesville, a town of 4,000, have grown accustomed to a constant stream of administrators at Piney Ridge.
The Waynesville police chief has never met Talmo, or most of the previous administrators. McCulloch said he and his 20 officers respond to Piney Ridge most often when children run away.
"Most of them are misdirected kids," he said. "Most of them are not from Missouri."
Six police agencies responded to Piney Ridge in August 2006 after staff reported a riot.
Waynesville Fire Chief Doug Yurecko and his firefighters were called to help ventilate the buildings after police used pepper spray to quell what turned out to be a disturbance involving a handful of youth.
"We've has some minor fires there, when a juvenile set a fire, and we've been involved with other fires," Yurecko said of his 25 volunteer firefighters. "The staff come and go. I don't know what their pay scale is, but if I go there one month, the next month I won't see the same faces."
Compared to a state hospital, Piney Ridge isn't very big, Yurecko said.
With 60 beds, Piney Ridge is one-fourth the size of the Delaware Psychiatric Center, with its average daily census of 245 patients. In addition, the juvenile population suffers from emotional, psychological and behavioral problems that are minor when compared to the serious psychological illnesses among the patients at DPC.
In their testimony before the various groups investigating DPC, Meconi and his management team, which now includes Talmo, have stressed the severity of illnesses at DPC, which include schizophrenia, personality disorders, dementia and behavioral concerns such as pica, the eating of materials that are not food products, such as batteries and toilet paper.
Assurances
The last time Talmo ran the Delaware Psychiatric Center, micromanaging by senior officials and an inflexible system prevented him from making changes he felt were necessary to improve the facility.
This time, Meconi has assured him he'll be able to make his own decisions without interference.
"That was part of our discussion when the secretary called me -- what's it going to be like, and do I have the autonomy to get to say what's wrong," Talmo told The News Journal. "I got assurances that I would get his full support. That was the deciding factor."
Talmo, who has supervised adult and juvenile psychiatric facilities in nearly a dozen states, said he's garnered a reputation as a fixer.
"Mike has a good track record of improving facilities," Meconi said. "He improved the facility when he was here previously, and I expect him to do it now."
This is the second time Talmo has replaced Robinson at Delaware's state hospital.
The 58-year-old Delaware native first served as DPC director from late 2001 through the end of 2004 and was credited with bringing DPC back from the brink of decertification.
When Talmo was brought in in 2001, Robinson, then the deputy of Renata Henry, who directs the Division of Substance Abuse and Mental Health, had been serving as acting DPC director for four months. Robinson took over when former director Wesley Perkins resigned after allegations of short staffing prompted federal intervention.
One of the reasons Talmo left in 2004 was because of interference from Henry, some current staffers said.
Talmo, who will again report directly to Henry when he starts work, said it wasn't Henry so much as an inflexible system that caused him to leave.
"It comes with the territory," he said. "It's part of working with a big system -- lots of competing voices. I wouldn't put it all on Renata. I would put it on working in a state system."
When Talmo walks in the door, he'll be making $130,000 a year -- about $40,000 more than Robinson made while in charge of the facility. After resigning as director, Robinson became deputy director of the facility, a well-protected merit position.
"When she was Renata's assistant, I thought she was pretty sharp," Talmo said of his future deputy. "What she did at the facility, I really don't know."
Meconi said he plans to resume weekly meetings with the DPC director, something he did not do when Robinson ran DPC.
"Mike is going to be part of a team," Meconi explained. "He is in a chain of command. He is not going to be micromanaged."
Talmo, Meconi said, will report directly to Henry, adding, "but I expect everyone to work collaboratively."
Henry did not respond to calls or e-mails seeking comment.
Meconi's spokesman, Jay Lynch said in an e-mail, "In response to your request to speak with Ms. Henry I offer the following statement: We look forward to having Mr. Talmo join the leadership team of the Division of Substance Abuse and Mental Health. His extensive experience in psychiatric hospital management will be an asset to the hospital, the Division and the community."
Proposed changes
Talmo promised to consult with the line staff at DPC once he returns.
"I need to be out and about," he said. "I'll talk to everybody. I plan to come in at night and weekends. I want to see what's happening since I was there last, see how bad it is. If it is bad, I want to make that assessment myself."
He's inheriting a hospital where the staff is polarized into cliques. Some of these groups have submitted petitions calling for unpopular staffers to be removed.
"You'll have more of these cliques when a facility is under fire," he said. "People need to talk to each other."
As part of its ongoing investigation into conditions of care at DPC, The News Journal has documented allegations of patient abuse and sexual assault that have led to felony assault and rape charges against two former DPC attendants. More than six federal and state agencies are conducting separate investigations into patient care and supervision at the state hospital.
Talmo said he's got a one-strike-and-you're-out policy regarding patient abuse.
"I don't tolerate patient abuse," he said. "To have someone discharged, there's a process. You've got to go through the process, but they'll not work in the building as long as I'm there."
Since the newspaper began investigating DPC, Meconi, Henry and Robinson have made few public comments, except when testifying before the various groups investigating the facility.
Talmo promised to be available when questions of patient abuse or other incidents arise.
"It's a public facility," he said. "The public has a right to know."
He said no one has ordered him not to talk to the public.
"I haven't been yet, and hopefully I won't be," he said.
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