Yesterday, a large group of DCF employees, state legislators and former patients of Solnit South, the state’s psychiatric care facility for teenagers, took to the facility’s front lawn to demand a $44 million increase in state funding to improve the facility’s infrastructure, expand its services, and end Solnit’s chronic staffing shortage. The demands follow two patient-staff attacks last month that left 11 employees injured.
“This is not about whether the money is there,” said Becky Simonsen, Vice President of SEIU 1199NE, the largest healthcare workers’ union covering Connecticut and Rhode Island. “This is about whether our leaders in our state will choose to invest in the children who need it most, and we are here today to say loud and clear that these kids deserve a safety net that meets their needs, because a safety net is only a safety net, if it is there when a child falls.”
Simonsen demanded that the state legislature make a one-time payment of $20 million to Solnit for capital improvements to its facilities, and appropriate another $3 million annually to “create an environment that reflects the quality of care these children deserve.” She also demanded “at least $21 million” to combat the facility’s staffing shortage, and to hire new staff for the creation of three new units: one for children with neurobehavioral needs, another for children with co-occurring psychiatric disabilities and intellectual/developmental disabilities, and a transitional group home, to separate children requiring lower levels of care from higher-risk children. Simonsen estimated that each unit would require around 30 new employees.
“We will not accept our governor saying that we cannot afford to do this,” said Simonsen. “We will not accept the governor pointing to the fiscal guardrails as an excuse and saying, ‘I want to, but I can’t.'”
Simonsen said SEUI had met with DCF’s Interim Commissioner Susan Hamilton a few weeks ago, who told her the “scope of the issue is beyond the DCF’s current budget,” necessitating greater investment from the state’s legislature.
State Senators Matt Lesser (D-Middletown) and Martha Marx (D-Bozrah), and State Representatives Patrick Biggins (D-East Hartford), Laurie Sweet (D-Hamden), and Kaitlyn Shake (D-Stratford) were present to show support for SEUI’s demands. Lesser noted the “additional support” provided to DCF last legislative session, but said, “it did not go far enough.”
“We have what has been a world-class facility right here, but due to decades of disinvestment, we are not meeting the moment, and we are not protecting both the children and also the dedicated staff who have devoted their lives to caring for these folks,” said Lesser. “We are moving, hopefully, in the right direction, but we are not moving fast enough. And until we can say with a straight face that every child is getting the care that they need, that every worker here is safe on the job, we are not going far enough, and we have to do more.”
Simonsen said Solnit is facing a “staffing emergency unlike anything we have experienced before,” and that staff routinely work 16-hour shifts and units operate below minimum staffing levels. Simonsen believes the issue is compounding because the facility is already short-staffed, which heightens the risk of danger to existing staff. As a result, Simonsen said there are over 66 staff members currently out on workers’ compensation. The issue doesn’t only affect the staff, but the children as well.
“When there aren’t enough staff, children don’t receive the intensive therapy they need,” said Simonsen. “Group treatment doesn’t happen. Recreation disappears. Other educational and therapeutic programming is reduced. Our members who came here to help children heal spend their shifts simply trying to keep everyone safe.”
Simonsen stressed the unique role Solnit plays in the state’s mental health landscape; she said that many of the patients that Solnit receives would have been sent to Connecticut’s Juvenile Training School, a juvenile prison that was shuttered in 2015 after a 15-year old girl died by suicide. Many others, Simonsen said, have been turned away from private psychiatric providers because “their needs are too complex.”
“Our members care for children and adolescents with the most serious and complex psychiatric needs in our state,” said Simonsen. “Many have survived unimaginable abuse, neglect, and profound trauma. For these kids, Solnit is not one option among many; it is the only option.”
Erin Burns, a child service worker at Solnit, said she has been assaulted twice over the past few months, sustaining a head injury each time. The first incident occurred when she and a co-worker attempted to break up a fight between two children and ended up being struck in the head with a walkie-talkie, suffering a concussion as a result.
“I returned to work as soon as I was able,” said Burns. “Yet within weeks of returning, I was being forced to work consecutive double shifts and being put in unsafe situations. Most memorably, I was the only staff member on a unit: one adult, seven children.”
That same week, Burns was assigned to another unit where she had “zero opportunity to build trust or rapport” with the children assigned to her, which she said is “essential.” Ultimately, a child on that unit punched her in the head. Burns said that she and her colleagues accept the risks associated with their jobs, because they believe “these children deserve competent and compassionate care.” What she can’t accept is “preventable danger and harm caused by ineptitude,” said Burns.
“I believe that these assaults were preventable, and they were not simply part of doing my job,” said Burns. “They were the result of chronic understaffing and a lack of leadership. These factors and others are repeatedly putting staff and children in unsafe circumstances. These young people are not the problem; they deserve consistency, structure, therapeutic care, and a safe environment where they can recover, heal, and begin a journey to a better future.”
Dr. Akashdeep Aujla, Solnit’s principal psychiatrist, highlighted the need for greater diversity of service capacity in the state. He spoke highly of the work being done at Solnit, calling it “one of the top five training programs for child and adolescent psychiatry across the country,” but argued that a lack of proper resources keeps children from reaching their full potential. Of the patients Aujla has seen over the past six to eight months, he estimated that half of them have reached their treatment goals, but because the state lacks the proper facilities to discharge them to, they have been forced to remain at Solnit.
“They are just languishing,” said Aujla. “And who are they in the company of? Other very intellectually limited or autistic kids, or behaviorally delinquent kids. They needed to move on; they need to move on. Even today, out of my eight patients, four of them have met their treatment goals for inpatient care months ago, but they cannot move on because there are no other available facilities in the community.”
Every staff member had their own idea as to when Solnit’s issues reached critical mass; Darnell Ford, a unit supervisor at Solnit, said he has worked there for 28 years and believed resources have “always been an issue.” Aujla and Mickson LaPlante, a lead children’s services worker, both estimated that Solnit began its decline about a decade ago. Regardless of timelines, Simonsen said the present situation “is really a breaking point.” Ford chalked up the issue to a separation between the realities faced by Solnit’s staff on the ground and the expectations of DCF’s administrative staff.
“There’s always reasons or justifications,” said Ford. “We have, for lack of a better term, folks who are detached from the actual work that is being done at this facility, the connection that’s needed to understand when we make demands or we say there’s certain things that need to be provided, that there isn’t a true understanding of what that takes and what that means.”
ReAnn and Amanda, two former patients of Solnit who left the facility in 2016, told Inside Investigator they were surprised by how dire Solnit’s circumstances had become since their departure. ReAnn, now a mother, psychiatric technician, and UConn nursing student, shared the busy schedule that Solnit’s staff had for her and the other patients, saying it “helped us focus on our personal goals and our programs.” She hoped today’s patients could appreciate the same opportunities afforded to her.
“After my last suicide attempt, I truly didn’t believe I’d live past the age of 16,” said ReAnn. “But Solnit South changed the course of my life. The care I received there helped me heal and gave me the tools to become a functional, responsible, and empathetic adult.”
Amanda, now a mental health worker and social work student, said she experienced years of sexual and physical abuse as a child, and that by nine years old, she “knew what it felt like to want to die.”
“I suffered in silence for years until my suffering could no longer be hidden,” said Amanda. “I spent much of my teenage years in psychiatric hospitals. I was struggling with complex PTSD, eating disorders, depression, anxiety, and borderline personality disorder. Those experiences shaped my life, but they did not define my future.”
Amanda said Solnit’s staff gave her stability and compassion, instilling in her the self-belief she needed to heal and “begin imagining a future I never thought I would have.” She enjoyed photography, swimming, therapy, exercise, and trips to local restaurants, all of which she said were “a necessity, a part of the healing journey.”
“They helped us build confidence,” said Amanda. “They helped us develop skills, and they gave us moments of normalcy while we worked towards healing. I know firsthand how life-changing compassionate, trauma-informed care can be.”
Was this article helpful?
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
