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Dec. 15, 2006 Clinic, staffer
enter 'no contest' pleas in conjunction
with child's death
Both Northwest Counseling and
Guidance Clinic, Inc., and one of the
company's staff members pled 'no
contest' Dec. 6 when felony and
misdemeanor negligence charges were
read to them at the Barron County
Justice Center, regarding the death of
a 7-year-old girl at a Rice Lake mental
health facility.
The 'no contest' pleas were part of
a plea agreement the defendants had
reached with State and County
prosecutors.
Speaking to the plea agreement
reached with the Rice Lake clinic,
Assistant Attorney General William
Hanrahan said the State would recommend
the maximum sentence-a $100,000 fine-be
lodged against the company.
Additionally, a corporate integrity
agreement was incorporated into the
deal, which requires the company to
come up with a detailed, written policy
regarding when and how physical holds
should be used on its patients.
According to the agreement, for the
next two years, the company agrees
to:
* Use restraints "only under
emergency circumstances, as the last
resort and solely for the prevention of
likely great bodily harm or death."
* Establish criteria for staff
members to use in evaluating the
appropriateness of restraint.
* Pay for the retraining of all
direct care staff in the use of safe
restraint techniques.
* Have, at a minimum, "direct care
staff, a social worker, a day treatment
program administrator, a registered
nurse" and/or a physician reviewing
each instance of physical restraint
soon after it has been used on an
individual.
* Comprehensively document all the
reasons why a restraint was used in
each instance and to forward this
information to the subject's
doctor.
READ MORE...
Dec. 13, 2006 Teaching tool or
restraining device?
Body sox are meant as a
therapeutic device for kids to explore
their space. A therapy okayed by the
Pinellas County School District to calm
kids is being questioned by parents.
It's called a body sock, but some
parents call it a restraining
device.
The district said body sox are good
teaching tools. The family said it's a
restraining device used to discipline
their son. READ MORE...
Dec. 10, 2006 State reworking policy
on restraining students
LANSING -- Tragedy struck
twice in Michigan schools in 2003, when
two special education students died
after being restrained face down on the
floor by staff members.
After 2-1/2 years of
sometimes-heated debate, holding
students face-down or prone, or using
any restraint that restricts breathing,
would be prohibited under a policy
before the State Board of Education on
Tuesday.
Some advocates for students with
disabilities want the state to go
further, banning all types of restraint
and any use of seclusion where a child
is placed alone in a room and cannot
leave, either because of a locked door
or an adult guarding the doorway.
The proposed policy allows the use
of seclusion and non-prone restraint as
a last resort. READ MORE...
Nov. 22, 2006 'Prone restraint'
allowed at youth facilities
Staff members at state
facilities for children are still
authorized to use a method of restraint
banned by two other state agencies that
deal with adult inmates and the
disabled.
The Office of Children and Family
Services on Tuesday confirmed that
staff members are taught to place young
inmates face down, and to lie across
their backs while immobilizing their
arms.
Brian Marchetti, a spokesman for the
agency, said the method is designed to
de-escalate a dangerous situation. "We
use the least aggressive method of
restraint," he said.
The method of restraint and its
aftermath are the focus of a death
investigation at Tryon Residential
Center for Boys in Perth, Fulton
County. A 15-year-old inmate died
Saturday, hours after he was restrained
by staff members because he had become
"physically aggressive." READ MORE...
Nov. 17, 2006 Jury awards $2 million
verdict against school for autistic
children
A Suffolk County jury awarded
$2 million today to the family of an
autistic boy who was abused at a
private school for autistic children in
Randolph, the lawyers for the family
said.
The jury found Robert Fantasia, the
executive director of the Boston
Higashi School; three teachers; a
doctor; and an administrator at the
school responsible for the physical
abuse caused to Scott Tedeman. The
student's family said it discovered the
abuse in 2000 and later withdrew him
from the school where he was a
residential student for 14 years.
School officials could not be
immediately reached for comment.
Boston Higashi, one of more than 200
private special education schools where
Massachusetts students can attend on
state-financed tuition, is known for
its unorthodox methods of teaching
autistic students. Last year, a former
teacher was convicted of injuring a
student. SOURCE
Nov. 16, 2006 Bancroft Complies, But
Still Monitored
Bancroft NeuroHealth, a
Haddonfield school serving the
developmentally-disabled in the region,
has complied with the terms of a state
settlement agreement after complaints
from parents alleging children were
unsupervised and unnecessarily
restrained.
But the state Office of Child
Advocate said Bancroft would be
monitored for another six months by the
OCA staff or an outside consultant who
will focus on supervision of
psychological and behavioral services,
along with efforts to track reports of
alleged abuse and neglect. READ MORE...
Oct. 28, 2006 2 Stephens County (TX)
Teachers Face Abuse Charges
2 former employees of a Marlow
school for disabled children are facing
criminal charges for the alleged
assault of a student. Donita Healer of
Duncan and Lisa Berscheidt of Marlow
are charged with aggravated assault and
battery on a special education student
at the Stephens County Special
Education Cooperative. Officials say
Healer has been suspended with pay
pending the outcome of the case.
Berscheidt was a teacher's aide
until she resigned September 6th, one
day after Marlow Public Schools
launched an internal
investigation. Prosecutors allege
the two women grabbed a student by the
arms and shoulders and violently forced
the student to sit in a chair.
SOURCE
Oct. 14, 2006 New claims of abuse at
boys camp
GREENVILLE, FL - Three
separate state agencies are
investigating whether caretakers used
banned, excessive and harmful
restraints at a camp for delinquent
boys, some of whom are mentally
retarded or have other special needs.
[...]
In May, DCF's inspector general
concluded there was no evidence to
sustain allegations that youths at
another Twin Oaks-run facility,
Apalachicola Forest Youth Camp,
''sustained serious injury'' as a
result of excessive force at that
Florida Panhandle camp for youths
incompetent to stand trial because of
mental illness or disability.
The report said, however, that eight
youths had broken bones at the camp
between October 2003 and March 2006,
including four broken arms and two
broken elbows. At least four of the
injuries occurred during restraints.
Twice, on Feb. 4, 2004 and Sept. 13,
2004, youths fractured elbows during
''elbow control'' restraints, the
report says.
One Miami youth, a then-15-year-old
with mental retardation who was
detained at Apalachicola after being
charged with molestation, suffered a
spiral fracture to his left arm in
December 2005, according to records
obtained by The Miami Herald. A report
from Tallahassee Memorial Hospital said
the injury occurred during a
restraint.
In all, DCF received 219 child abuse
reports involving the camp since
January 2002. Twenty-six of the reports
were closed with either verified abuse
or some ''indicators'' of abuse.
READ MORE...
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