Lifeline Addresses Pierceton Woods Concerns
“We have kids in this facility who are hopeless. And if you’ve never been hopeless, you can’t imagine what it’s like,” said Mark Terrell CEO of Lifeline Youth and Family Services Inc. which operates Pierceton Woods Academy. “Our goal here is to help them be the men they are supposed to be and give them hope.”
For the past few months, Pierceton Woods Academy has been raising concerns among local residents. It was in early December when 17-year-old Dakota Kimbler of Rome City left the facility, stole a gun from an unlocked vehicle and shot a man in a foiled carjacking attempt. (See story)
Since then, reports of juveniles leaving the facility without authorization have been reported several times and residents are fearful of what could happen next. The most recent incident was on March 31 when two juveniles left the center and made threats to return with guns. (See story)
At the request of Kosciusko County Commissioners, Pierceton Woods Academy opened their doors and provided a tour of the facility to the Pierceton Town Council, county commissioners, Pierceton Police and local media.
Terrell told the group of 7 visitors Tuesday, “We want to address some of the situations that have happened in the last 6 months and make you aware that we take it very seriously,” he assured. “We have looked at every policy and procedure and looked at what we can and can’t do and there are certain things we can’t do by law.”
On the list of “cannots” is restraining the juveniles. The only time a youth can be restrained by staff members is when he is a danger to himself or to another youth or staff member. “But from time to time they need to blow off a little steam,” said Terrell. “Kids are like a pop can. You shake them up and when you go to open it, it’s going to go somewhere. We try to open it a little at a time, but sometimes they blow and want to get away.”
Even then, however, Terrell said the boys are most always accompanied by a staff member and they almost always return on their own. When they elect not to return, law enforcement is called and that, he added, is because the boys who are at the facility have been ordered to be there.
“We’re not perfect,” explained Terrell. “We have kids who make mistakes … our goal here is for lasting change.”
The boys who are sent to Pierceton Woods Academy are referred there from the Department of Child Services, probation departments and the Department of Corrections. “It would be much easier to be a detention facility,” Terrell noted, assuring that the youth who are detained in the locked down facility, which is very much like the county jail, have never escaped. “We have never had someone run away from that facility. Never.”
In selecting which juvenile offenders or those in the Children in Need of Services program are allowed into the facility, an internal assessment team reviews each child’s records and makes a determination which kids they feel can be rehabilitated. As Terrell explained, “Our focus is all about the families. We want to keep them with their families and work with the families. We don’t want kids here, we want them at home where the best chance at rehabilitating the family unit can happen … many times it’s not the kid who’s the issue.”
There are five different programs offered at Pierceton Woods Academy. The first is detention for boys sent there by the Department of Corrections. Juveniles are typically remanded to custody for less than three days.
The second program is a behavior modification program that is anywhere from 90 to 180 days. And the final is a more intense, clinical nature reunification program that can have youth living at Pierceton Woods for up to 18 months.
Terrell continued, “We only want to take kids that we feel comfortable working with … We don’t want those hardened criminal kids. We do not take fire starters. We also do not kids that we consider are strongly mentally ill or highly medicated … another kind of kid we don’t take are violent offenders.”
Again, Terrell assured that the assessment team does not excellent job at selecting which kids will be accepted into their programming, but he admitted no system is perfect. “We’re really good at evaluating, but we’re not 100 percent,” said Terrell.
At Pierceton Woods Academy, education is a major part of the youth’s day, and so is recreation. Kids earn points by completing studies, maintaining their rooms and behaving appropriately. Those points allow them privileges like watching TV or playing video games. “Here,” said Terrell, “we’ve got to keep them busy and build their resumés … If we don’t help them change and give them hope, we’ll be paying for them the rest of their lives.”
Pierceton Woods Academy can house a maximum of 12 juveniles in the detention center, but they try to maintain that number to no more than 9 at a time. In the unlocked facility, also known as the independent living program, a maximum of 48 youth can reside there for up to 18 months.
Among the changes Pierceton Woods Academy is looking to make in the near future are programming adjustments to continue to improve behavior modification efforts, and they are even looking to employ law enforcement on site. “The potential for law enforcement on campus is being looked at,” Terrell explained.
Pierceton Woods Academy is licensed through the Department of Child Services as a 40-bed child care institution, it is licensed and accredited through the Department of Corrections as a secure detention facility, and the facility undergoes regular audits by the National Council of Accreditation.