A top state health official told lawmakers Monday that allegations of abuse and neglect at the New Hampshire’s youth detention center are false, contradicting reports from two independent organizations.
Marie Noonan, director of the Division for Children, Youth, and Families, said children at the Sununu Youth Services Center are aware the allegations are getting attention and, as a result, they are disobeying orders and threatening to report staff who enforce them. That’s led to low morale and staff calling in sick, she said.
“Youth too often tell staff they will get in trouble or they'll be fired if staff fulfill their job responsibilities,” Noonan said. “While more training and coaching is always helpful, even our most confident staff being threatened with their job is disconcerting.”
The center’s director, Joshua Nye, did not attend Monday’s hearing as lawmakers had requested. When lawmakers asked about his absence, Noonan said Nye has been out for two weeks because he “needed some time off.”
The abuse and neglect allegations first came to light in March, when the Office of the Child Advocate first reported that a child suffered a broken bone during an alleged illegal restraint and was not provided appropriate medical care for 48 hours. Lawmakers are conducting their own investigations, as is the New Hampshire Attorney General.
The Disability Rights Center in New Hampshire and the child advocate stood by their reports Monday. They say children at the Sununu Center are being held in illegal prone restraints and being put in seclusion as punishment. They’ve also questioned the training staff receive and whether it focuses enough on deescalating situations.
“The issues that I brought up here today have been retold by different youth [and] confirmed with staff,” Michael Todd, special projects director with the Disability Rights Center, told lawmakers. “These are not one-offs. This is not a situation where one youth told us something and we placed complete faith in that.”
Noonan refuted nearly everything that Todd’s office and Child Advocate Cassandra Sanchez have alleged.
Noonan said a child broke their pinky finger while punching a window in a bedroom, not while being restrained. Staff tended to the child immediately, she said.
She said youth were not in a lockdown for four to six weeks, as reported. Noonan said staff confined children to their rooms in late January because a youth had sharpened an eating utensil into a “shank.” Staff began loosening restrictions about a week later.
Lawmakers said their investigation prompted the Sununu Center staff to begin using a body scanner that the center has had for two years rather than strip-searching children. Noonan said the timing was coincidental.
Noonan said multiple staff have been injured recently but declined to give specifics. That includes three staff members who were injured earlier this month “following assaultive behavior involving multiple youth,” according to Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson Jake Leon.
She said the approximately 15 youth in the facility, who range from the ages of 13 to 17, “present more challenging behaviors” than staff encountered five years ago.
Noonan said the trainers who work with staff reviewed footage of youth and staff interacting. “His observations are that these kids are actually trying to harm our staff,” she said.