Funding Pulled From Group Home For Children Following Discovery Of Abuse
For handicapped children, living in a group home environment with peers facing similar disabilities can be a real gift. Unlike other living arrangements where children can feel significantly out of place, group homes for disabled children and young-adults hopefully foster an environment of support and encouragement.
Understandably, many of these young people require supervision. When staff at these facilites fail to use their common sense and supervisory responsibility, the opportunity for dangerous and abusive conditions rears its head.
Abusive conditions were recently discovered at a group home for young-adults in Florida. An investigation completed by in collaboration by officials from Florida's Department of Children & Families, Attorney General's office and local police confirmed that staff at a facility identified at O'Carroll Homes, tortured a 17-year-old girl who was a resident at the facility.
The investigation revealed that four employees burned the severely disabled teen with a clothes iron in January. In addition to the trauma of the incident, the young woman sustained serious burns to her legs and ankles. According to reports, two staff members at the facility actually abused the girl, while two other staff members watched the abuse without any intervention.
In addition to criminal charges brought against the individual staff members, offcials have also stripped the group homes Medicaide funding. The decision to strip the faciliities public funding, will likely force the facility to close its doors as most group homes rely almost entirely on government funding to operate.
As a lawyer who has represented children injured and abused in a group home setting, I believe the owners of this facility are partially to blame for this incident. The fact that multiple staff members where involved in this horrific incident leads me to believe that this facility truly has more than a 'bad seed'-- or two.
Frequently, in the course of litigating abuse in institutional settings, I find that most abuse is perpetrated over a long period of time. As owners of a facility caring for exceptionally vulnerable young adults, I would find it completely shameful if the owners were doing nothing more than reaping the profits from this important facility.
