Another child has been injured by staff at the Sununu Youth Services Center. This isn’t an unfortunate incident — it’s the inevitable result of policy choices made by our Free State/Liberty Alliance/GOP-run state legislature.
Their vouchers are looting public education funds, causing special education programs and the children they serve to suffer. Combine those with cuts to community-based child and family support services, and children by default unnecessarily end up in institutions. Now funding for the Office of Child Advocate has been cut, making it impossible to adequately protect children in state care. They’re choosing to create a system that throws kids away.
There are two ways to correct persistent abuse and neglect of children who are in residential facilities. One is to ensure that those facilities are following the law. After the horrific, decades-long abuse at the Center was exposed, the legislature enacted a law, House Bill 49, requiring that the facility’s staff must be qualified to “ensure the provision of treatment to children with behavioral health challenges exacerbated by considerable trauma histories . . . Including training in therapeutic approaches to address challenging behaviors, including the use of de-escalation techniques.”
The facility is required to use “evidence-based practices.” It is required to provide “educational programming and staffing that meets the individualized educational needs of each child . . .[and] Integration of clinical sessions and recreational large muscle movement activities throughout the day.”
While these requirements are for a mandated replacement facility, the law also requires the Department of Health and Human Services to begin implementing the programming changes at the current Center “as soon as reasonably practicable.” While this wording gives DHHS some leeway, it is important to note that HB 49 was signed into law on April 13, 2023, which was also the bill’s effective date. Three years is more than enough time.
It’s evident from the current revelations that virtually none of the provisions of that law are being followed. Children are not provided an appropriate education, integrated therapy services, or even recreational time. Staff either aren’t properly trained or are not abiding by their training. Their use of restraint and seclusion has been illegal for years. Those who are responsible for violating these laws — including those in supervisory roles — must be held accountable.
Oversight and accountability are necessary to address abuses in our current system. The way to prevent abuses from happening in the first place is to reform the system so fewer children are confined in residential settings. There are a number of effective models for accomplishing this, one of which I’m very familiar with.
I was part of a team of teachers and therapists that created a therapeutic day treatment program for children and adolescents with psychiatric and behavioral disorders, and I taught there for nine years. School districts, parents, mental health agencies, the county and the tribe teamed up to teach both academic and pro-social skills daily in a separate-site school. Half of every day was devoted to individual, group and recreational therapy. The students were able to live at home and practice their skills in their own neighborhoods. When they were ready to start back to “regular school,” day treatment staff coordinated with their home districts to support the students through the transition.
This is not an easy job. Students often came to us angry and mistrustful of adults, mostly for good reason. There were no locks, dangerous restraints, or seclusion — just structure and patience. We angered students with our rules and expectations, but we treated them like valuable human beings, and we never once injured them. We were proud to be invited to many celebrations when they graduated from high school.
School districts championed this model because hospitalization and incarceration are much less effective and much more expensive than community-based programs in helping troubled children become successful adults, but New Hampshire’s GOP leadership would rather “send them away.” At the same time, they refuse to adequately fund staffing, training, and oversight of the Sununu Youth Services Center.
We can only speculate on their motives, but we know some things for sure: taxpayers are supporting a system that demonstrably harms children. We’re paying to defend that system in court when the inevitable harm happens. We’re paying fines and settlements when the state is found liable for harm. We pay in lost revenue and lost lives when we fail children who could have learned how to function productively in the world. There’s time between now and the midterm election to find candidates for state office committed to changing this indefensible system so it serves the children of New Hampshire. We already know which legislators oppose needed reforms. In November, we can send them home.
Jean Lewandowski is a retired special needs teacher. She lives in Nashua.