855. St. Joseph care home

The St. Joseph care home sometime named St. Joseph’s boys school or St. Joseph Institute are in the news due to an investigation into a number of death taking place in the 1950’s among the 60 boys enrolled at that time. 34 deaths over a short period is alleged to be on the hands of a monk.

If it is the case that a monk killed boys off the boys, it is safe to say that it could not have been fun to be there as a child.

Sources:

• Former head nurse says 20 boys were killed at Dutch boarding school (Daiji world)
• Dutch prosecutors probe Catholic institute deaths (The San Diego Union-Tribune)
• Multiple Deaths at Boys’ Home Were No Accident (Reuters via Bishop-Accountability)

854. St Joseph’s Boys School

The facility also going under names as St Joseph’s College and St Joseph’s College Hunters Hill is located near Sydney in Australia. It was established in 1881. For many years is was very closed connected to a Catholic Religious Institute of Brothers called Marist Brothers.

Recently articles about abuse which took place while the school had close connections to the brotherhood appeared. Testimonies were given before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. A former brother was convicted but most of the alleged abusers had died at the time of the hearing.

It could not have been fun to be victim to the abuse committed by some of the brothers back then.

Sources:

• Catholic Brother stands trial for the sexual abuse of his ‘favourite student’ in the late 1960s (ABC News Australia)
• Raped a dozen times when he was just 11 at a Catholic boarding school: Tony Daly reveals the devastating pain he hid during his storied rugby career and how his life spiralled out of control after retirement (Daily Mail Online)

853. Lava Heights Academy

Lava Heights Academy run by the same company who ran the now-closed Red Rock Canyon school and Mount Pleasant Academy is mentioned in an article where a mother realized that her son had run away when the police in Arizona picked him up. The facility had not reported him missing and as result of that the police were not looking for him. He could have been hurt by criminals while without adult company living in the streets.

Why did they fail? Maybe it is because the employees are not given the conditions they need.

A former employee writes:

Company pretends to care, but gets rid of good people and keeps bad ones in supervisory and management positions. Examples are they have nurses working as direct care staff.

Pros
Free meals

Cons
Management doesn’t care about people

It is clear that is the only good thing is free meals then you do not get caring employees. Employees who will speak out against management if the children placed at the facility do not the treatment set up in their treatment plan.

It cannot be a good place to be as a teenager in need of treatment.

Sources:

• Lava Heights Academy Employee Reviews (Indeed)
• Mother angry over S. Utah treatment center’s response after son runs away (The Spectrum)
• After a riot, increasing violence and now sex abuse allegations, Red Rock Canyon school will close (Salt Lake Tribune)

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Update 2022

An employee was arrested charged with with rape, sexual abuse of students

Source:

Staff member at southern Utah youth treatment center charged with rape, sexual abuse of students (Fox 13 News)

852. Den Maritime Base

The idea sounds fine. Putting youth out on a ship so they can skip possible drug use. The execution far from fine. Lacking teachers and being confined in a foreign harbor where the children can go into town unaccompanied. According to a TV2 documentary in the Danish TV2, it did not take very long time before the teenagers connected with a local drug-dealer so they could smoke weed almost every day.

We are talking about an arrangement which put the taxpayers back some 39,800 dollars per student.

And we are not even talking about the security risk a teenager alone in another part of the world would risk. Fact is that some of the teenagers came back without proper schooling which they were promised and it is a huge setback for their future. That is not something which is fun for the teenager when reaching adulthood and face the reality of life without proper career due to lack of education.

Sources:

• Brugte 247.422 kroner på at sende utilpasset elev til Caribien: – De ture skal simpelthen holde op (TV2 News – in Danish language)
• Young criminals have been sent on Caribbean cruises in an attempt to reform their behaviour (The Daily Telegraph)
• Skipper: Derfor skal unge kriminelle på sejltur til Caribien (Jydske Vestkysten – in Danish language)
• Kommune sendte kriminelle unge til Caribien: ‘Vi røg hash af kedsomhed’ (BT)