CATTARAUGUS COUNTY
Residents question closing of youth detention centers
LITTLE VALLEY — The voices of protest are rising again over the proposed closing of two state-run youth detention residential treatment centers in Cattaraugus County.
Turnout for a forum Thursday night, hosted by State Sen. Catharine Young, R-Olean, and Assemblyman Joseph Giglio, R-Gowanda, and organized by the New York State Public Employees Federation, packed the Cattaraugus County Legislature’s meeting chambers.
In attendance were supporters and employees of the Great Valley Residential Center and the Cattaraugus Residential Center in Limestone, the only two foster-care facilities offering court-ordered treatment to troubled youth in Western New York.
Both can accept a maximum of 25 youth and are eligible to receive 50 percent federal funding, with the remaining costs borne by the state and Cattaraugus County.
They employ about 50 county residents and are run by the state Office of Child and Family Services, which has proposed their closings in preparation for a changeover in the system of treatment to serve children within their home communities.
“There are eight counties in Western New York, but there are zero facilities [for the region] in the plan,” said Giglio after the session, questioning the reasoning for closing the only local residential treatment options for the region’s youth.
Giglio said the Great Valley facility has been in danger of closing for three years, while Western New York youth have for years been shipped across the state for detention and treatment. But he said he and Young are gathering information to make a case to Gov. David A. Paterson on Dec. 16 to keep both facilities open.
Young told the crowd that the State Legislature ordered the Office of Child and Family Services to update the numbers in its claims of an 80 percent recidivism rate for education- oriented facilities like those in Great Valley and Limestone.
She promised to keep working on the issue and said, “Tonight is just the beginning.”
Recent efforts to convert the Great Valley facility to a secure juvenile correction facility were also met with protest earlier this year, and the move was temporarily stalled when Young secured funding for a study of community-based treatment.
But as of Oct. 2, there were no youth in the Great Valley facility, after most were sent elsewhere for continued treatment or moved back home or into foster care. Also, the state ceased sending youth to Great Valley, while staff continue to show up for work. In Limestone, the population was down to nine juveniles.
Tom Hart, the principal in the Limestone facility, said two youth were recently sent to the facility to bring the population up to 11 in what he said was a move to placate those opposing the closing.
Linda Howard, an office worker at the Great Valley facility, expressed pride in the programs and the staff’s level of care for the kids.
“[The Office of Child and Family Services] wants us to look like we don’t have a reason to be open,” she said.
Speakers at the forum included court and law enforcement personnel, volunteers and employees at the two facilities, in addition to the father of Penny Lockwood, the Salamanca nurse who was raped and murdered in 1999 by a 15-year-old boy who had been sent to a correction center for a sex crime, was released and then did not receive the ordered counseling and supervision. The crime prompted the passage of Penny’s Law.
