Fulgenzi to Meet With State on Hawthorne Cedar Knolls Troubles

Frustrated with ongoing violent incidents involving students at two local residential treatment centers, Mount Pleasant Supervisor Carl Fulgenzi headed to Albany Tuesday to meet with state officials to discuss much-needed reforms.

Fulgenzi, Police Chief Paul Oliva and Sgt. Marty Greenberg, one of the town’s youth officers, will huddle with officials from the Office of Child and Family Services (OCFS) and state Sen. Terrence Murphy (R-Yorktown) to talk about changes for Hawthorne Cedar Knolls and the Pleasantville Cottage School. They hope to convince agency officials to implement changes more quickly.

A series of public forums was held last year where angry citizens proposed solutions following two violent incidents involving residents. New measures were implemented but little has changed, Fulgenzi said.

“There were a lot of corrective measures,” Fulgenzi said. “We don’t know if possibly they’ve been lax in some of these.”

Last week, OCFS, the agency that oversees the residential facilities, halted additional youths from moving to Hawthorne Cedar Knolls. That action followed an incident in which three of the facility’s residents left the campus on May 7 to board a train at the Hawthorne Metro-North station, Fulgenzi said. When it was discovered that they did not have money to pay their fares, they were told to get off the train at Valhalla, he said.

At the Valhalla station, they grabbed the purse and phone from an older woman reported to be in her sixties, Fulgenzi said. She was pushed to the ground but was uninjured.

Two of the youths were returned to Hawthorne Cedar Knolls and the other was transferred to another facility.

Fulgenzi said the state indefinitely suspended taking youths into the Linda Avenue facility until it can determine what should be done to improve the situation

“They’re going to start a process where they’re analyzing everyone that’s in the facility, making sure that they’re properly positioned to go there and trying to eliminate this type of thing from happening in the future,” he said.

Last week, OCFS issued a statement explaining its decision.

“OCFS is overseeing a directive requiring the Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services to thoroughly assess the youth in its care at the Hawthorne campus and their service needs,” the agency’s statement read. “OCFS will continue to monitor the agency closely, including announced and unannounced compliance checks.”

It will also continue to speak with community leaders about what measures must be taken to increase safety for the community and the facility’s residents.

While Fulgenzi and Oliva have had conference calls with OCFS, there have been few substantive changes during the past year.

“They’re in agreement with what we want. We want an analysis of the facilities. We want an update on the security measures,” Fulgenzi said.

Members of the grassroots group Coalition for a Safe Mount Pleasant, which held two public forums last spring to raise awareness of the issue, contended that the belated action of OCFS is inadequate after it refused to take steps for a year.

“We feel the halt of intake after one full year of working diligently with the organizations to improve safety, is no more than an ineffective measure to try and appease the public,” the coalition stated. “We are troubled by the continual reactive nature of the OCFS, rather than working proactively to establish measures and mandates that bolster safety.”

In their scheduled meeting with OCFS officials, Fulgenzi said he and Oliva plan to present ideas for new requirements for the two facilities. The town is pressing for a corrective action plan outlining improvements to Hawthorne Cedar Knolls and the Pleasantville Cottage School, he said. The town is also seeking a security review and a crisis intervention plan.

“We’re looking at the safety of the residents in the facilities as well as the residents in the surrounding communities,” Fulgenzi said. “As a father, I didn’t let my children just wander at night. So, I wouldn’t want them to let their children do the same thing.”

OCFS has directed the Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services, the agency that operates Hawthorne Cedar Knolls, to conduct a full assessment of the campus and determine whether any youths pose a serious risk to other residents or the community.

The agency also plans to update each resident’s Individualized Crisis Management Plan to include appropriate interventions and develop a strategic action plan to address the pattern of problem incidents, including students who leave the campus.

The Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services issued a statement of its own saying it would cooperate with the OCFS directive.

“The Jewish Board is working closely with the state in this matter while continuing to provide the very best services for the children in our care,” the agency stated. “The Jewish Board is committed to the community of Hawthorne and to the safety and well-being of its citizens as we are to the young people we serve.”

The agency stated that the teens, most of whom are of middle school and high school age, have suffered physical or sexual abuse, severe neglect and the loss of family and arrive at the facility under difficult circumstances.

“The Jewish Board helps them get their lives back on track,” the Jewish Board’s statement read. “Most of them do, working hard to overcome their challenges. Residents are here voluntarily and state regulations actually prevent Jewish Board staff from restraining anyone who goes off site. The staff works hard to discourage them. If they do leave, staff members follow them, on foot and in vehicles, to convince them to return. Most do within a few hours.”

Mount Pleasant Councilman Denis McCarthy said last week the model in which Hawthorne Cedar Knolls operates needs to be eliminated. McCarthy said he has been highlighting its failures for a decade since he served as chairman of the Community Advisory Board for Hawthorne Cedar Knolls and as an executive committee member of the community advocacy group Citizens of Action for Mount Pleasant.

McCarthy said home and community-based services are more therapeutically effective than institutional services and are more cost-efficient.