Shuman again fails to meet standards, state says
Center gets third provisional license
The Pennsylvania Department of Human Services has issued yet another provisional license to Shuman Juvenile Detention Center, saying Allegheny County’s youth lockup failed to correct previous violations and racked up new ones.
The six-month designation issued Friday means the center in Lincoln-Lemington remains out of compliance with DHS standards and must create a plan of correction.
Shuman director Rich Gordon said the center has partly worked to address the earlier issues, citing staff training in therapeutic crisis intervention and inviting the nonprofit Center for Victims. And he said he expects to fully implement a series of solutions when the county finishes hiring more youth care workers.
“It is a safe facility,” he said. “But we’ve got to demonstrate more consistently that some of our changes are going to take effect. ... We have a road map to where were going. We know what success looks like.”
In December 2015, DHS took away Shuman’s full license and issued a provisional one for a series of incidents at the facility, and on Sept. 30, the agency extended it through March 2017. A facility can be closed if it doesn’t meet state guidelines after four consecutive provisional licenses.
Among the incidents cited in the latest report was a resident suicide attempt in October. A staff member “neglected the supervision” of the child, who sneaked into an office and attempted suicide by hanging with a cord, according to a newly released DHS inspection report. Further, the staffer, who
no longer works for the county, didn’t call 911 for almost 20 minutes after theincident.If an employee errs, theperson is immediately rep-rimanded, which can re-sult in firing depending onthe offense, Mr. Gordonadded.DHS also took issue with how quickly staff re-sponded in breaking up fights between residents —but without saying exactly what is the appropriate time frame, Mr. Gordon said. “Sometimes it’s a lit-tle frustrating when the target is always moving.” But, he added, “We’ve never shied away from” the criticism. “We’ve had staff do things wrong.” DHS, whose officials were not available to com-ment for this story, has pre-viously found faults at thefacility.In April 2013, the agency said reforms enacted aftera Shuman worker slammed a 16-year-old into a door frame were inade- quate, and county Man-ager William McKain is-sued a report criticizing the center’ s leadership and recommending broad changes. In July of that year, the county fired S hu-man director William T. Simmons, who later sued for racial discrimination. His replacement, Earl Hill, retired in March. Brad Korinski, chief le-gal counsel for the Alle-gheny County Controller’ s office, who represents fis-cal watchdog Ch elsa Wag-ner on the juvenile deten-tion advisory board, said he was surprised by the is-suing of the third provi-sional license. The county “[ takes] the provisional license seri-ously ,” he said .“So why is it that at each point we think we’ve done what the state needs us to do, then state says ,‘ You haven’t. ’What’s the endgame here ?” The center is licensed to hold up to 120 residents, but its population Monday was 56, with an average stay at about 12 days.