Earlier this year, the Philadelphia Inquirer ran an article about the tragic death of a Philadelphia boy who died in a Tennessee treatment facility, similar to Devereux behavioral treatment centers in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Texas.

According to the article, in June of 2005, a Philadelphia childcare investigator heard about allegations of abuse and three months later, the city learned of a 14-year-old New York resident who had died of a heart attack in the Tennessee facility after a confrontation with a staff member.

The article went on to report that 17-year-old Omega Leach of Philadelphia died in June of 2007 after he was pushed, face down, on the floor, obstructing his breathing. At the time, 44 Philadelphia children and adolescents, more than 50 percent of the facility’s population, were in the same Tennessee center.

This young man’s death offers the opportunity to address options for organizations, like Devereux and others, to treat these children closer to home.

Below is a letter to the editor, published the week after the original report. I share the
letter here in the hopes that as a society, we can discuss reforms that will allow future incidents, like the one in Tennessee, to be avoided. With a new Philadelphia city administration only a few weeks away, we must begin having that conversation.

Dear Editor:
Your thoughtful article about the death of a Philadelphia teenager in a Tennessee psychiatric residential treatment facility highlighted the difficulty in monitoring distant treatment. One critical issue was not explored - why did every comparable facility in the Commonwealth refuse to admit this teenager? Does Tennessee have better or more specialized programs? No - Pennsylvania is home to outstanding psychiatric programs such as KidsPeace, Wordsworth Academy, and Devereux. Philadelphia children are served in Tennessee primarily because Pennsylvania’s licensing rules aggressively limit a facility’s ability to lock doors, to employ restraints, and to seclude an angry child. This laudable philosophy has the unintended consequence of making it impossible, with normal staffing, to safely treat some disturbed adolescents in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania children are sent to more “secure” facilities in states with less stringent regulations that undercut the philosophy of Pennsylvania’s regulations.A facility can be made “staff secure” by increasing the number and training of staff as noted by the Allegheny County official quoted in the article. Allegheny County places its severely challenged children closer to home by paying for the extra staffing. Philadelphia has been reluctant to take this approach given budgetary pressures. Perhaps your article wi11 catalyze the difficult but necessary discussions to find a means to keep all of our children safe here in Pennsylvania.

Sincerely,
Robert Q. Kreider
President & CEO
The Devereux Foundation