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The Department for Children and Families is moving its temporary juvenile detention facility from a converted office space in St. Albans, where two escaped earlier this week, to a seven-bed secure residential facility in Middlesex.
The department had moved the youth who had been held at the Woodside Juvenile Rehabilitation Center in Essex to the St. Albans facility last week to make room at the Essex site for psychiatric patients with COVID-19 symptoms.
On April 6, the department will move the youth to the Middlesex Therapeutic Community Residence.
The move comes after officials learned they could not install security infrastructure, including alarms and locks, in the St. Albans space.
DCF Commissioner Ken Schatz told lawmakers on Tuesday that one youth was back in custody. However, a DCF spokesperson said Friday that two youth were at large.
“The St. Albans space was not able to be fitted with the security measures needed for this level of programming,” DCF said in a statement Friday.
Schatz told lawmakers this week that the department was looking for a new facility.
He said the St. Albans facility’s landlord told state officials they could not make security upgrades after they had made the move.
“Frankly, we’re looking for another facility because we did think that we would be able to lock the doors and put alarms on the windows,” Schatz said.
According to a DCF statement the Middlesex Therapeutic Community Residence “offers outdoor areas including a recreational area and interior spaces for activities, creativity, and wellness.”
“It is hardware secure with locked doors and perimeter fencing,” the statement added.
The previous occupants of the Middlesex Therapeutic Community Residence were adults in a “short-term residential stabilization program,” according to DCF.
On March 31, those youth were moved to a unit within the Vermont Psychiatric Care Hospital in Berlin.
Up to five males in the juvenile detention or corrections systems between 13 and 18 can be housed in the facility.
There are three youth currently being held at the St. Albans facility, and two of them will be moved to the Middlesex facility.
DCF is looking to find another placement for the third youth, who is not in the state’s juvenile justice system.
Correction: The previous occupants of the Middlesex Therapeutic Community Residence were adults, not youths.
