Roughly three months after the state agreed to make changes to the treatment of youth at Vermont’s only juvenile detention facility, the organization that sued the state says the settlement has already been violated.
“We’re seeking to enforce the settlement and have the judge amend it based on the state violating it and we have concerns with them complying with it going forward,” A.J. Ruben, supervisory attorney with Disability Rights Vermont, said Wednesday.
Disability Rights Vermont earlier this month submitted a filing in federal court in Vermont stating that the Vermont Department of Children and Families, which oversees the Woodside Juvenile Rehabilitation Center in Essex, has not lived up to its end of a deal ironed out in April to address “dangerous conditions” at the Woodside facility.
“Defendants’ failure to adequately train, implement and enforce new policies and practices, mandated by this Court through this litigation,” Ruben wrote in the filing, “require notice to the Court and remedial action.”
That action, the filing stated, includes additional oversight, “and other remedies directed at preventing ongoing and imminent Constitutional and statutory violations against youth with disabilities detained at Woodside.”
The federal lawsuit brought by Disability Rights Vermont, a nonprofit organization that advocates for people with disabilities and mental health issues, sought to end controversial restraint and seclusion practice at Woodside.
Federal Chief Judge Geoffrey Crawford had issued a scathing order last summer granting a preliminary injunction against DCF, citing a “horrific” video he viewed of a youth going through a crisis at the facility.
That video, the judge wrote in his order, “demonstrates in the space of a few minutes Woodside’s limited ability to care for a child who is experiencing symptoms of serious mental illness.”
He ordered state officials in charge of Woodside to work with Disability Rights Vermont to make sweeping changes to policies and practices.
In the April settlement, several steps were outlined that the state would be taking, or had already been taking, including training Woodside staff in a national model of de-escalation, restraint and seclusion techniques.
In addition, the settlement called for establishing protocols to deal with emergency safety situations.
The filing earlier this month, Disability Rights Vermont said a mandatory state report did not include all of the “significant” incidents at the facility during a three-month time period.
The report from the state Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living identified three uses of force during that period, involving two youth.
“In one incident,” the filing from Disability Rights Vermont stated, “despite noting that a staff person pushed a youth causing the youth’s head to ‘strike the door with apparent force’, the DAIL report does not comment further on the legality or probity of that use of force, other to note that similar policy violations to the other incidents occurred in this one as well.”
The filing from Disability Rights Vermont cites another incident in late June.
“Review of video from a June 29 incident involving two youth confirms that the same, or even more dangerous, pain-inflicting maneuvers that existed prior to this litigation were used again,” the filing stated, “despite this Court’s Preliminary Injunction Order and Order approving the Settlement Agreement.”
The filing also stated that Woodside director put in place soon after the settlement was reached “was suddenly removed” from her position recently.
Disability Rights Vermont writes in the motion that youth have reported staff at the facility now require grievances from residents to be handed from the residents directly to staff to pass along to supervisors, rather than a secure box as had previously been done.
“This chilling new process,” the filing stated, “may be related to staff statements in the June 29th Incident Reports identifying a desire to litigate and obtain money damages as the motivating factor behind the youth’s misbehavior.”
Disabilities Rights Vermont is asking Judge Crawford to schedule a hearing in the matter to determine the “extent and severity” of the violation and determine “appropriate remedies.”
Sean Brown, DCF commissioner, said Wednesday he is aware of the June 29 incident referenced in the filing. “We’re concerned about what occurred,” he said. “The safety and welfare of those youth at the facility are our utmost concern and also we want to make sure we are living up to our obligations under the settlement agreement.”
In response to claims that the state is not living up to the terms of the settlement, Brown said, “We are preparing to respond formally to the court filing.”
Brown confirmed that Woodside’s interim director, Brenda Dawson, who started in that post in mid-March had been placed on administrative leave, which was first reported Wednesday by Seven Days.
“I really can’t get into the details, it’s a personnel matter,” Brown said, adding that it’s not related to allegations raised in the Disability Rights Vermont filing.
Brown said that Beth Sausville, who has been the family services district director in Bennington, is filling in as the Woodside director. Christine Johnson, DCF deputy commissioner, is also assisting, Brown said.
The juvenile detention center facility has also been on the move during the first of the year. In March, DCF moved youth from the 30-bed Woodside facility in Essex to clear the way for that site to be used for psychiatric patients with Covid-19 symptoms.
But, the state didn’t need to use it for that purpose, and the facility was eventually returned to its previous use as a juvenile detention center.
Earlier this year, juvenile detention was first located in an office site in St. Albans. Following a pair of escapes by youth from that location, the juvenile detention program was housed at the Middlesex Therapeutic Community Residence, which had sent residents to another facility as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Another escape by a youth from the Middlesex facility led DCF to move the juvenile detention facility back to Woodside in Essex, a more secure location.
The Vermont State Employees’ Association, the union representing workers at Woodside, has been critical of the state’s moving staff and youth from the Essex site, contending the moves to St. Albans and later Middlesex created security and safety issues for both the staff and the youth.
Meanwhile, the long-term future of Woodside at the Essex site also remains in doubt. The Scott administration announced late last year plans to close the facility and contract out the services provided there, citing the dwindling number of youth in custody.
In recent months, the Woodside population has consisted of a handful of youth.
The effort to contract out services appears to have stalled due to the Covid-19 crisis and the lack so far of a private contractor to replace the services provided at Woodside.
