Later this week, state child protection officials are expected to give their public response to a damning legislative investigation that found the state’s lack of oversight, leadership, and staff training is failing children and staff inside New Hampshire's youth detention center.
The 12-page report of findings and recommendations, released Friday by the Legislature's Oversight Commission on Children’s Services, goes beyond the abuse allegations that prompted lawmakers to begin investigating the center in March. It found that the Division for Children, Youth, and Families and the former director of the Sununu Youth Services Center failed on a number of fronts.
Here are five takeaways.
The state’s Office of the Child Advocate is ‘necessary’
It was the state Office of the Child Advocate, in a March report, that first disclosed allegations of illegal restraints and seclusions as well as an extended lockdown inside the Sununu Youth Services Center. The report triggered the lawmakers’ investigation, as well as investigations by the state Attorney General’s office and the Disability Rights Center in New Hampshire.
The Office of the Child Advocate was nearly eliminated last year, when House Republicans defunded its budget. The state Senate restored some funding. At the time, Rep. Dan McGuire, an Epsom Republican, said that in a tight budget year, the Office of the Child Advocate wasn’t “necessary.”
The report from the Oversight Commission, which is made up of lawmakers and child safety advocates, disagrees. It recommends increasing the agency’s budget and its authority over the Division for Children, Youth, and Families.
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“There was strong consensus that the Office of the Child Advocate must be granted greater oversight authority to prevent [the Division for Children, Youth, and Families] from investigating itself and to ensure the facility shifts toward a genuinely trauma-informed model,” the report said.
Budget cuts by lawmakers had an impact
The Oversight Commission's report cites leadership failures by the Division for Children, Families, and Youth and Joshua Nye, who resigned as director of the Sununu Center last week. Senate President Sharon Carson said the Legislature’s budget cuts also contributed to the crisis inside the youth detention center.
At a meeting last week, Carson noted that, on top of cuts to the child advocate’s office, lawmakers cut funding for the Division for Children, Youth, and Families, which oversees the Sununu Center.
“This is what happens when the funding disappears, and they don't have what they need in order to run the facility properly,” Carson said. “I'm putting a call out to the public to stand up and stand with us and say, ‘Look, we need to make sure that these things are funded and funded at a level that is going to help kids and not hurt them.' ”
According to the report, the Sununu Youth Services Center is short 14 youth counselors. The Office of the Child Advocate had to reduce its time with children inside the center when it lost funding for four of its nine employees. And My Turn, the nonprofit hired to provide education services for children held at the center, said it will not renew its contract because the Division for Children, Youth, and Families said it could not pay $100,000 of its costs.
Carson said Friday she will work with lawmakers to reimburse My Turn.
“You can't expect them to absorb that cost,” Carson said. “We can't allow these children to sit there without their educational needs being placed.”
A failure to adopt a therapeutic approach
A 2023 law required the Division for Children, Youth, and Families to ensure it ran the youth detention center with a therapeutic, trauma-informed approach. Staff had to be trained to de-escalate situations. Children at the center, who range in age from 13 to 17, had to have regular access to exercise, family visits, and wrap-around services to prepare them to return to their communities.
The report concluded that not all those measures are in place. Committee members criticized a lockdown in early 2026, where children had limited access to the outside and teachers; the alleged use of illegal prone restraints; and staff training that focuses on military tactics. They learned that Sununu Youth Services Center staff were still strip-searching children for weapons and contraband rather than using a body scanner that had been in the building for two years.
One child told an investigator from the child advocate's office, “We are in jail now,” according to its March report.
Rep. Kim Rice voiced concerns during an April committee meeting. “[The law] was quite clear and it was not a suggestion,” she said. “So I'm not quite sure why the facility is struggling with this because they've had, in my humble opinion, ample time to train the staff and to really implement some good programing.”
Distrust could lead to more oversight of DCYF
Lawmakers said their investigation convinced them that there needs to be more oversight of the agency and the youth detention center itself.
The discussions with leadership from the Division for Children, Youth, and Families “highlighted a pervasive lack of transparency and oversight,” according to the report. Commission members cited discrepancies in the information provided by the agency as well as a “culture of circling the wagons and concerns that DCYF is essentially investigating itself.”
Committee members intend to file legislation that would require trauma-informed staff training and give the Office of the Child Advocate “direct authority over DCYF.”
The report also calls for potentially withholding funding for the Division for Children, Youth, and Families if it fails to implement a trauma-informed approach.
There are positives too
Lawmakers noted a few highlights in their report.
Staff and children at the center said there are youth counselors and others that children trust and are doing good work. My Turn, the nonprofit that’s been providing education in the center, got high praise from children and lawmakers. Exercise and classroom time are no longer limited, the report said.
The Division for Children, Youth, and Families has finalized a policy to begin using the body scanner. Committee members called that a "significant development.”
Carson, the chairperson of the Oversight Commission, has asked the Division for Children, Youth, and Families to attend its meeting Friday morning to respond to the report.
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