Former EMQ FamiliesFirst Resident Files Lawsuit X2 UPDATED Now Bittersweet Justice
“A former resident of the troubled Davis group home that closed last year has filed suit against operator EMQ FamiliesFirst.
The lawsuit, filed last week in Yolo Superior Court, accuses the Campbell-based nonprofit of failing to care for and supervise its youth residents. Dr. Joseph George, a licensed psychologist and attorney for the plaintiff who was not named because of privacy reasons, said inadequate staffing levels directly contributed to his client being sexually abused by other minor residents at the facility.
“These children are fairly impaired. A lack of supervision and a lack of staff is a substantial factor in the sexual exploitation of children by other children,” said George, citing numerous complaints filed with the California Department of Social Services, which licenses community care facilities.
EMQ FamiliesFirst spokeswoman Eva Terrazas said the organization does not comment on active litigation.
The plaintiff, now a 19-year-old Sacramento County resident, lived at the Davis location from 2008 to 2010. He was allegedly locked in a room overnight and deprived of a bed, food, water and a restroom, according to the lawsuit. An investigation by DSS later substantiated the claims.
The group home drew attention in June 2013 when Davis police arrested two teenage boys on suspicion of raping an 11-year-old girl at a nearby park. All of the youths were residents at the group home.
The controversy eventually led DSS to investigate dozens of complaints and revoke EMQ’s license, and counties across the state scrambled to relocate children they had placed at the Davis center. The group home closed in September 2013.
EMQ FamiliesFirst settled with the state earlier this year to retain its license, but the home has no children at this time, according to Michael Weston, DSS spokesman”
Former Davis group home resident files suit, alleges sexual abuse[Modesto Bee 8/6/14 by Richard Chang]
REFORM Puzzle Piece
Update: “A new lawsuit has been filed against a shuttered Davis group home for children.
KCRA 3 has followed the accusations of understaffing and poor management at the FamiliesFirst group home since 2013, when it came to light that there were more than 500 calls for police to the facility.
Now, one of the parents of a child — who is at the center of some of the harshest allegations against the group home — is speaking out for the first time.
The problems at the EMQ FamiliesFirst group home in Davis first came to light in the summer of 2013. The state said it was inadequately staffed and supervised.
As a result, the Davis Police Department said children would routinely get out and commit crimes, including physical and sexual assault.
A Contra Costa County couple said their son, then 12 years old, was the victim of one of those sexual assaults.
“I have never cried so much in my entire life,” the boy’s mother said. “I can’t even put words to the feelings that I had. I was in shock. I don’t even know that I was coherent.”
The boy’s parents have filed a civil lawsuit against EMQ FamiliesFirst, Inc., and two of its employees, for negligence, emotional distress and fraud.
“It’s not OK to do kids like this,” the boy’s father said. “Especially kids that are born into situations that are not their fault — that they have these illnesses.”
KCRA 3 is protecting the identity of the parents because of the alleged crime and because of the victim’s age.
This family’s story began in 2005 when the couple adopted the then-4-year-old boy.
They said they provided him with a loving home, but over time, they said it just wasn’t enough.
“When you say special needs, we think, ‘OK, that means they need love and support and a sense of family and structure and safety,'” the boy’s mother said. “I clearly didn’t understand the magnitude of his needs.”
The family said their son is a lively boy with a big smile and a talent for art.
“(He’s) very arsty,” the mom said. “I mean, he’s an incredibly creative child.”
The boy’s parents said he was mentally immature for his age and also had various emotional and learning disorders.
By the time he turned 11, the couple said they saw no choice but to try a group residential treatment center.
In March 2012, the parents moved their son into EMQ FamiliesFirst.
“It was the hardest decision to this day that I’ve ever had to make in my life,” one of the parents told KCRA 3.
The California Department of Social Services said it was a “Level 14” facility, which is the highest treatment level for children who often have behavioral problems and are at a high risk to harm themselves or others.
“They just show really well. And they give you this sense of hope,” the boy’s parents said.
The boy made slow and steady progress for the first few months, but then, “We began to notice there were lots of changes in the staff and the people that we were seeing,” the parents said.
The lawsuit accuses FamiliesFirst of making significant budget cuts in 2012 that reduced staffing and led to poor supervision.
“We noticed that his clothing was changing,” said one of the boy’s parents. “He was wearing clothing from the lost and found. His hygiene wasn’t the same.”
The lawsuit reads that the boy began to sneak out of the facility with other students.
The parents said the first time it happened, they only found out because their son called and told them the next morning.
They immediately brought him home.
“I can’t imagine how a child could be gone all night long — an 11 year-old,” his mother said.
The boy returned to FamiliesFirst after his parents were reassured staffing issues would be addressed, but they said things got much worse.
“I got this feeling, and it’s kind of like your gut feeling, like something’s not right,” the boy’s mother said.
About a month later, in May 2013, the boy again left unsupervised with a group of nine kids.
The group went to a nearby park, where police said he was forced into sex and then beaten.
“I just lost it. I can’t even tell you,” the boy’s mom said. “I think just everything probably went blank. I just, I had no words. I couldn’t believe it.”
Added the father, “I went through an array of emotions — upset, very angry. Somewhat denial, that this can’t be happening. That this is a dream.”
FamiliesFirst declined to speak with KCRA 3’s investigative team for this story.
A spokeswoman said the company doesn’t comment on pending litigation.
In June 2013, however, the state’s Department of Social Services moved in and revoked the company’s license. The state then gave FamiliesFirst a chance to earn back a probationary license.
In that agreement with the state, the company admitted some children were able to leave campus without permission.
The agreement goes on to read that on more than one occasion, the home failed to bring on additional staff members to prevent or shadow each child who was trying to leave.
FamiliesFirst also admitted that in some incidents, it failed to timely report to the state and other authorized representatives. But the agreement with the state makes no mention of the sexual assault allegations.
“We have not given up on him,” the boy’s mom said. “We will not give up on him.”
The couple said they are suing to help pay for their son’s ongoing treatment, but there’s another reason, too.
“My husband and I have to be a voice,” the boy’s mother said. “Many of these children are wards of the state — foster care kids and they don’t have anyone to speak on their behalf. Who’s going to speak for these children?”
The EMQ FamiliesFirst group home in Davis closed in September 2013. The company still operates other facilities across the state.”
Lawsuit filed against shuttered Davis group home[KCRA 2/18/15 by Brian Heap]
Update 2:” A jury in Sacramento, California, last week awarded more than $11 million to the family of a 16-year-old-boy who had been sexually assaulted by a peer at his group home in Davis. The jury found that operators of the group home failed to look after the boy as the facility for troubled youngsters descended into a prolonged period of chaos and violence.
Deshaun Becton, by age 3, had lived with a half-dozen foster families before being adopted by his parents, Veronice and Lamont Becton, in 2004. A nurse and a firefighter, the Bectons were dedicated to Deshaun, but they struggled to tend to his extreme outbursts and obvious behavioral health needs. In March 2012, they placed him at the Davis home. State and county officials, along with counselors from the home, promised they could help Deshaun.
“We were a family struggling to change a life and in need of 12 to 15 mature jurors who could judge our situation with fairness and common sense, and that is exactly what you have provided,” Lamont Becton, Deshaun’s father, said in a statement thanking the judge, jury, and his attorney, Sean Laird. “We pray that you never forget him, and the thousands of other foster care children that are out there without a voice.”
The lawsuit drew on findings unearthed by ProPublica in its 2015 examination of the home, part of a series of stories on systems of care for troubled children in California and elsewhere.
Over the course of a six-week trial, the jury heard evidence from a range of witnesses. They described a terrifying stretch of months at the home where police responded to hundreds of emergency calls, children absconded by the dozen and staff quit in frustration.
As laid bare in legal filings and documents, Deshaun initially progressed at the home. But when the company encountered financial problems, it made leadership changes, laid off essential staff and quickly spiraled out of control. Then, in October 2012, when a staffer broke a girl’s arm trying to restrain her, the state Department of Social Services cracked down, ordering the staff to dramatically reduce its reliance on “restraints,” the controversial physical holds used by counselors to subdue troublesome children.
The group home’s leader, a licensed therapist named Audrie Meyer, instructed her staff not to restrain children except in the rarest circumstances. The children came to understand they had more freedom. They began leaving the campus in large numbers. Staff were instructed to “shadow” them rather than physically keep them on the grounds. But because of the layoffs, there weren’t enough staff to adequately supervise the children who remained at the home and those who wandered off. The disorder intensified. Children began spending nights in local parks, hitchhiking across the state, using drugs and having sex with one another and adult strangers in the community.
“It was like going to war instead of going to work,” one counselor said in a deposition taken as part of the lawsuit.
When children told such distressing stories to counselors, Meyer seemed unconcerned, even callous.
In a deposition, one clinician at the home said Meyer told her: “Well when they are tired of being raped, they’ll come back.”
At trial, Meyer denied making that statement. She did not return a call for comment on this story.
But in hours of previous interviews with ProPublica, she defended her conduct. She said she was distraught by the situation at FamiliesFirst but felt powerless to stop it. She said she alerted her superiors to the tumult at the home, but they failed to meaningfully intervene.
EMQ FamiliesFirst was originally composed of two separate social service organizations that merged in 2009. It ran the 72-bed group home out of Davis for more than a decade, serving hundreds of children from California’s juvenile justice, education and foster care systems.
The company recently changed its name to Uplift Family Services. It issued a brief statement in response to questions about the verdict, saying it continues to serve 30,000 children and families in California.
“We are disappointed in the verdict, it does not reflect the great work EMQ FamiliesFirst provided in Davis,” the statement said. “We will work to ensure that the judgment has no impact on direct services to children and families.”
As for Deshaun, he is in a secure psychiatric facility in Utah, where he has lived for over a year. ProPublica chronicled his journey through California’s beleaguered social services system in 2015, showing how he became one of the more than 900 California children who have wound up in out-of-state treatment facilities because they have overwhelmed resources in their home state.
His mother, Veronice, told ProPublica he “isn’t doing well.” She said that during the trial, she was getting calls from staff at the facility where he resides. They were telling her he had been acting out and had to be secluded from his peers.
She is shocked by the amount of the verdict and hopeful it will finally give their family the ability to pay for better treatment. Up until now, his treatment has mostly been paid for by the state.
“We could never afford the right kind of care for him,” Veronice Becton said. “We’ve never had a whole lot of choice in it. We had to take what was given to us. To have some say and choice in that is just beyond. We just wanted to know what happened to our son. That was our whole issue.””
California Group Home Liable for Millions in Case of Abused Boy
[ProPublica 4/17/17 by Joaquin Sapien]
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