Singled Out

Last Friday I wrote about how in a press release DCF singled out Jane Doe and transferred her to a boys’ juvenile detention facility after she got into a fight with three other girls. The fact that she was involved in a fight with the other girls was never mentioned in the press release, it was made to sound like a isolated incident that involved only Jane Doe.

The Child Advocate just commented on the press release and Jane Doe’s treatment; according to WNPR,

Child Advocate Sarah Eagan said in a lengthy statement on Wednesday that DCF "singled out Jane Doe's behavior" when at the time the incident had not been investigated and the youth was not charged by police. Eagan said DCF's actions were "inexplicable in light of the fact the July 12 incident involved four girls all of whom were restrained, all of whom were described in DCF records as hitting each other and staff."
[…]
Eagan said one of the girls involved in the fight at Pueblo was restrained on five separate occasions during the same night. She stressed DCF did not transfer any of the other girls who were involved in the incident.

The child welfare agency is Jane's guardian, Eagan said, and is legally obligated to make decisions that protect her interests. "DCF's rush to publicize a fraction of an incident is difficult to reconcile with its parental role," she said, questioning whether the department has a conflict of interest between its roles as Jane's guardian, and managing juvenile services for the state.

Eagan was also critical of DCF's decision to discontinue Jane Doe's clinical relationship with the community based psychologist she began working with while at York. This was despite the recommendations of her office, the federal court appointed Guardian Ad Litem, and Jane's public defender. She said the disruption is not helping the teen, with a history of physical and sexual abuse, to make progress in treatment. Eagan said in the last seven months, Jane Doe has been moved four times and switched therapists at least five times.

Jane's struggles with aggressive behavior and frequent placements are not unique, the child advocate said. Her office conducted a recent review of incidents at the girls' Pueblo Unit and at the boys' Connecticut Juvenile Training School, both in Middletown. Eagan said there have been over 200 incidents in the last three months where staff reported using physical or mechanical restraints to control youth.

DCF is just bumbling through with no long term plan on the treatment of transgender children in their care and is making the situation worst. As the Child Advocate pointed out they are jerking Jane Doe from one therapist to another and she is unable to build a working relationship with her therapist. The other point that the advocate pointed out was that “there have been over 200 incidents in the last three months where staff reported using physical or mechanical restraints to control youth” but Jane Doe was the only person sent to York Correctional Institution for Women and the only one sent to the Juvenile Training School.

To make matters worse, the only treatment facility for traumatized youth is in Massachusetts where she was to be sent, but they refused her after the incident in the press release,

DCF said a Massachusetts facility that had tentatively accepted Jane Doe has now rejected her admission.

And now she is back solitary confinement at the Connecticut Juvenile Training School for boys just like she was at the York Correctional Institution for Women in Niantic. The way DCF paints her, no one will want to take her into a foster home or will she ever get the proper treatment that she desperately needs.

Update July 25, 2014:
You can read the letter from the Child Advocate here.