By KATHERINE HEAD
Bigfork Eagle
February 15, 2006
Swan Valley Youth Academy's parent company recently submitted its Plan of Correction in response to 19 licensing violations found by the Montana Department of Heath and Human Services at the end of last year.
Cornerstone Programs, a Denver-based company, oversees four juvenile facilities nationwide.
The Swan Valley Youth Academy near Condon is a 42-bed Residential Treatment Center licensed by the state's Department of Health and Human Services and is contracted by the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
After the department received a complaint from the Montana Advocacy Program, an investigation was launched to determine if the charges of abuse were well-founded.
Upon review, the state charged the facility with 19 licensing violations.
The violations ranged from staffing to severity of punishment to proper report filing. An emphasis was put on the academy's intake process. Some cadets reported that during the initiation, they were forced to exercise until they became ill and then consume a great deal of water.
In the Cornerstone Plan of Correction it states, "Program policy and procedure never dictated that intake should be harsh, humiliating, or was any physiological harm an intended outcome.... Whenever a youth appeared to be stressed by the intake, the process was halted... Cornerstone Programs agreed that the intake process had to be modified and we implemented a new process that was reviewed and approved by Licensing and the lead investigator of the abuse allegations."
"The intake prior to this was more like what you would find at a boot camp, and we are not a boot camp" stressed Herb Goldsmith, Cornerstone director of quality assurance.
Violations were also related to excessive lengths of time-out and confinement, failure to report serious incidents, and retention of qualified staff.
Goldsmith has been stationed at SVYA to oversee and implement the Plan of Correction.
"I'm part of the vigilant follow through," he said.
According to Goldsmith, the revised intake process now serves to orient new cadets to the program. The youth will meet with a case manager, be advised of the rules, have their physical fitness levels assessed, be issued their clothing, be assigned to a platoon, and be oriented by staff and peers.
Goldsmith said the military model in place at the academy provides structure--an essential component to treating the juvenile offenders.
"I believe in a structured environment. The more structured the environment, the more effective treatment will be," he said. "We impose a modality in which the youth can focus on their issues rather than on the behavior."
According to the Cornerstone Web site, the goal of the treatment programs is, "Learning what is pro-social and acceptable behavior, improving social and life skills and gaining respect for one's self and others in a caring environment...." Goldsmith said violations were not a break down in philosophy, but an exercise in poor judgement on part of specific staff members.
"These issues are from certain individuals not following policy and procedure and not filing appropriate incident reports," Goldsmith explained. "It appears there were a number of incidents that we didn't know about."
The staff members in question are no longer employed by Cornerstone, he added.
Math and science teacher Phil Comes has been at the academy for six years. He concurred that the violations resulted from the misconduct of specific employees.
"There were one or two people (in violation), but the rest of us at the academy were doing what we were meant to," Comes said. "I feel like the whole academy got lumped in with those one or two people. It did a lot of damage to a lot of people who weren't directly involved in the allegations. It affected the whole facility"
Comes noted there are three state certified teachers at the facility. He added that in addition to structure, the program provides youth with educational tools that can be applied towards graduation or completion of a GED.
"We get some pretty tough kids when they first come in. They can range from scared to belligerent, but we take all that into consideration," he explained. "They usually become more receptive and are happy that they have received an education."
SVYA accepts male residents between the ages of 13 and 18, often referred to the facility by the courts. The juveniles are adjudicated and sentenced to the facility, usually for a term of six to 12 months. Kids who are serious juvenile offenders, seriously mentally ill, needing serious medical attention, have an IQ below 71, are sex offenders, or are suicidal are not accepted into the program.
"We take tough kids, but we aren't going to take kids who are severely antisocial," Goldsmith said. "We are becoming more vigilant on screening and admissions."
Those who complete the treatment have a decision to make, stay clean or end up in another facility.
"This place turned me around," a 16-year-old cadet said. "Without this place, I would be in jail. It changed the way I look at everything--myself, other people, the way I live my life."
Some of the cadets believe the facility has improved since the offending staff members left.
"This place was pretty bad when I got here. I hated it. But now it's not too bad," another 16-year-old cadet said.
After being charged with burglary, the youth said the facility has taught him "integrity, accountability and anger management."
They walk out of here with manners, self-discipline, self-pride and confidence that they didn't have before coming here," Comes noted.
Even though Cornerstone maintains the facility's integrity, the repercussions of the investigation and resulting licensing violations have hurt the facility's reputation, Goldsmith said. As of last week, there were 10 cadets enrolled in the program.
"I believe the referrals have dwindled because they have been waiting on the status of the license," he said.
But both Cornerstone and the state will be monitoring activities at SVYA very closely.
According to licensing bureau chief Roy Kemp, the Plan of Correction was received and accepted, "and now we move forward with the normal process."
