Explain yourselves
Ascent continues its descent
STILL another child now has been officially reported to have been left alone at a center run by Ascent Children’s Health Services, this time in North Little Rock—with the result that two staffers at the place have been fired. But with the record it’s run up in this state, it’s time for the state of Arkansas to consider firing Ascent itself.
This time the result was not fatal, which is more than can be said about the heartbreaking case of Christopher Gardner in June; he was left to die alone at another “child-care” center run by Ascent in West Memphis, a case that has resulted in criminal charges against four women. Ascent fired the workers, but who is going to fire Ascent?
Who will serve and protect our children if We the People won’t? That’s why, acting through our elected representatives, the citizenry of this state in which the people supposedly rule, as in the state motto Regnat Populus, should be outraged by any dereliction of duty when it comes to our kids.
The chief executive officer of Ascent, Dan Sullivan, is a state representative from Jonesboro, who didn’t have any immediate comment when this latest scandal at Ascent broke. Both a separate source and Ascent reported this latest instance of a child being abandoned at one of its centers to the state’s Department of Human Services.
Ascent’s problems range from minor to major, starting with using a van with a broken window and a door that didn’t shut the way it should. The department upheld the various findings and noted they were “true based on the information obtained from staff.” Call them accidents waiting to happen. And a caller described the children’s center as dirty and in need of a cleanup. Separate claims were made about staffers’ yelling at kids and in one case grabbing a child’s arms. Kids can be exasperating, and even the best of parents may on occasions want to yell at Junior or grab one of his arms. But when such incidents become systematic, the pattern deserves investigation and maybe more.
FAIR WARNING: Ascent operates 10 such child centers across this state, and according to its website, is “a leading treatment program for physical and behavioral developmental issues. We provide day and outpatient therapy for adolescent boys and girls and teens throughout Arkansas.” More impressive than this kind of mental-health jargon is how Ascent uses its influence in the Legislature to avoid certain supervision. Dan Sullivan has complained that the regulations adopted by the state’s Early Childhood Commission have proven costly for the state’s childcare centers as well as its taxpayers. But surely not as much as ignoring them proved for Christopher Gardner.
A circuit judge in Crittenden County now has set a trial date in the fall for the four women accused in Christopher Gardner’s death, and the people of Arkansas should let justice run its course for the women who have pleaded innocent to charges of manslaughter, a felony in this state. Now let’s see how this story ends.