A new report from New Hampshire’s Child Advocate describes a "significant lack of ethical treatment" at an out of state youth treatment facility. The Child Advocate also raised concerns about New Hampshire’s system of accountability for out-of-state facilities.
The subject of the report was the Bledsoe Youth Academy in Tennessee, which housed two children from New Hampshire. The report describes staff taunting children with past trauma and children being made to wear different color jumpsuits based on disciplinary status or history of self harm.
Cassandra Sanchez, New Hampshire’s Child Advocate, toured the facility on a routine visit in July, which ended in her office recommending the two children be sent back to New Hampshire.
“The largest concern of the facility is hearing the practices and the culture in which they operate and how they treat the children, and really recognizing that it’s very traumatizing and not the therapeutic approach we would seek out in any of these level programs we would seek out for our state,” Sanchez said.
In New Hampshire, when children don’t have the option of living with their families and foster care isn’t a fit, they are evaluated for placement in a youth treatment facility. Out-of-state facilities are used when other options are exhausted.
For the report, the child advocate’s office interviewed the two children from New Hampshire. One child reportedly said he would do “whatever it takes to get back to SYSC”, referring to New Hampshire’s Sununu Youth Services Center.
When the Office of the Child Advocate voiced concerns about the facility, the head of Bledsoe Youth Academy suggested that the children who made the complaints were lying, according to the report.
The report also makes recommendations to the Bureau of Children’s Behavioral Health Services and the Division for Children, Youth, And Families about out-of-state facilities. The facility was licensed by New Hampshire’s Department of Health and Human Services, specifically the behavioral health service bureau.
However, the child advocate’s report found that the bureau never visited the Bledsoe Youth Center for the initial certification in 2021. Officials also did not visit the Bledsoe Youth Academy when it was recertified in 2023. According to the report, DCYF visits the children there monthly, but no concerns were reported prior to this point.
The report discussed the use of restraint in the facility as well, and found that the Bureau of Children’s Behavioral Health Services had no centralized repository of reports for residential centers that use restraints. The Office of the Child Advocate took issue with DCYF’s required reporting procedures for out of state facilities.
“National programs have not been requested to provide the reporting to the centralized incident reporting inbox,” reads the report. “That is a clear dereliction of the duty of care entrusted to the Division, as well as interference with the OCA’s oversight obligations.”
The parent company of Bledsoe Youth Academy, Youth Opportunity Investments, has been the subject of scrutiny in the past. The parent company has faced criticism and legal trouble for neglect and abuse in other states.
Sanchez said she’s hopeful the situation in Tennessee will be resolved.
“I’m talking with the state on either a daily or every other day basis at this point in regards to these children,” said Sanchez. “I think we’re moving in the right direction to getting them home.”
But the issue is complex, and Sanchez mentioned one hurdle present in behavioral health writ large at the moment: staffing.
“Staffing is a major issue and a struggle for so many facilities, and therefore they are unable to fully fill their beds.” Sanchez said. “Beyond just the appropriateness of the child’s fitting into the treatment level they can offer, it’s also can they staff it.”
