NYS OCFS Commissioner Carrion responds to Renee Greco's murder

Can't afford to be fired, thank you for reading and commenting. It usually is "Nothing but the normal political BS..." in any "political" walk of life.

There is no doubt in my mind that questions need to be answered. And, I think it is safe to say that the direction Commissioner Carrion is taking the agency has compromised more than safety for staff and residents.

She is taking steps to provide the police departments of the group homes in their area, but what about the facilities. Staff are being assaulted, verbally abused, and threatened daily. 

For the truth to be told tthere are a number of incidents were staff are being physically, verbally and mentally abused by residents at these secure, limited secure, non-secure and group home on a daily basis. Renee Greco's murder is just the lastest tragedy to occur under Carrion's rule of power. Carrion does not care about the staff that work at any of these facilities, she has no clue of how to run a facility. People she came from the United Way. What gives her the right to change policies that were established long before he reign of terror. You can only cover up so many staff assualts, group disturbances, runaways and staff deaths with excuse after excuse shifting the blame to Directors, Assistant Directors and staff. Carrion needs to be removed from office and someone that knows how to run a facility needs to be put into place. Please do not put one of her people Deputy Commissioner, Associate Commissioner or Facility Coordinators in her place, they all play the same political game any way to get ahead even if it means neglecting your own morals and values just to stay in their positions. No one that is in a politically appointed position will speak out against her from the same political party because of the poltical ramifications. Everyone knows how Carrion screwd up and threw a blanket over OCFS by making the same rules for group homes as for secure residents. Hello! Get a clue, you cannot treat a kid that is in a group home for running away from home the same as a sex offender or a murderer. They are not the same people. By the way how has are society got so screwd up that convicted criminal either by judge, jury or by their own admittence have more right that a worker for OCFS. When I signed up to work for OCFS it never said I would be physically, verbally or mentally abused on a daily basis and I would just have to take it. I have never in my entire stay in OCFS (Over 12 years) seen as many residents return to the care of OCFS for violating parole or catch new cases then I see now. Carrion does not care about education programs or anything in secure facilities or any other facilities. When she is giving directives to Child Abuse Allegation investigators to accept every child case that is called in even though the directors and assistant directors review the film and see no abuse there is something totally wrong. People that work at these facilties are so scarred to even put their hands on a resident when a fight occurs because you could be a subject of child abuse and possibly lose your job as a little league coach or pop warner coach becuase of these allegations are absurb.We need reform and we need it now. I am typing up a letter to Senator Young and asking that she come to the secure facility's and speak with the staff about their concerns, the directors and assistant directors can only speak about so much due to the political ramifications to their jobs. The staff will inform her of the truth. At this point this is are only chance to finally take back our facilities and bring back the much needed structure 

Thanks for a god, thorough report

Carrion aka the 'Cover Up Queen'

Can someone tell e why she is still in office? What does it take to get rid of her, the lives of 2 people r not enough? Someone ought to take a good look at the new directors that r in place now also.......The guy we have incited a youth and lied in our main log book about it, the youth ended up assaulting 2 staff after he punched our director 7 or 8 times, and the stupid part of this is the administration knows this. He left this 17 year old boy/man in our facility after our director was deservingly assaulted and this kid went after staff. This youth tried to avoid this but our director kept egging him on until he responded with punching him 7 or 8 times. The sad thing is....this youth had not had 1 incident at our facility (5 or 6 months). And the sadder thing is he was released shortly after he did all this, only to be rearrested in a week. And yes the moron is still our director, even after administration questioned him.If that was a YDA what would have happened? 

I forgot to mention our director never called child abuse on this one but boy every chance he gets he calls it on our staff. He tries to hide assaults by telling staff not to press charges is this Gladys Carrions twin or what?

Carrion is currently in the process of covering her backside with the help of her little flunkies.  She may have had some good ideas about changing how to deal with the kids but she doesn't understand how to institute the changes.  Instead of choosing carefully which ones should be in less secure placement she wants them all out in 6 months even if they want to stay in placement at a private agency.  

Now, come on if a kid says "please don't send me home I'd rather stay in a group home" why are we sending them home?  The agency use to let them stay if they asked, a kid knows when the only thing waiting for him or her at home is trouble.  Most of them have parent's that shouldn't be allowed to raise a cat let alone a child.  And Carrion insist they go back to the parent who doesn't really want them.  Programs in OCFS that worked have been shut down and even the YLA program is so different that it no longer is a place for pride and instilling self confidence in the kids who used to be invited to join,but just another failing program after she took it's independence away and turned it into another cookie cutter program.  She's is not doing these kids any favors but refusing to instill structure and boundaries.  If that worked they would never have been placed with the agency in the first place.

Well it looks like this story has dried up doesn't it? What a shame but I was afraid this would happen. I too, work in one of these facilities/schools and I can tell you the OCFS is asleep at the wheel  when it comes to overseeing these places. If agencies are allowed to do whatever they please to save money at the expense of their employees and the children and families they are supposed to be serving, then OCFS is not doing the job it is supposed to be doing.

From understaffed group home settings to mixing varying populations of children and lumping them all together under one roof, that office has a lot of blame on it's hands if anything more should happen to a child or employee.

I thought the State Senators announced a task force a few weeks ago? What happened to all of that?

Yet another incident at an upstate girls facility(secure) and we all know which one that is. A few days ago a coworker of mine was assaulted while trying to protect another resident from being kicked repeatedly in the head. He was covering the target resident and took a couple kicks himself. He then got up to try to control this raging maniac we call a child ( 5'11" approx. 240 lbs.) who repeatedly punched him in the head. The youth who he was protecting then got off the floor and threw 3 chairs accrossed the room, which were meant for the other resident but they ended up hitting the yda in the back of the head. Now with all of that said you would think someone would haved called the troopers to have these girls removed immediatly but no instead they waited till the next day. When the troopers came the girl who threw the chairs the previous day went bwith them without incident. The other "kid" put up a fight, squareing up with staffers, who were doing everything we could to follow "policies" and not have to put our hands on her. She ended up being restrained three times during the first one I was bitten by this youth in the back and then was bitten in the wrist then scratched on the forehead. I ended up straining my back and now am out of work. All i am trying to say by writing all of this is that these residents should have "taken a ride" after the first incident the day before. I have worked in this facility for 9 years and never once was assaulted. In the past 2 months I have been physically assaulted twice and am verbally assaulted every single day. I don't really know if this is the place to voice my opinion but I really feel this agency needs to be handed over to corrections, especially the limited and secure facilities. I am at my wits end and don't know if I really have what it takes to endure this environment anymore.

Just a few weeks ago we had an attempted riot at our facility. Around midnight 6 youths came out of their rooms and confronted staff, scary when there are only 3 staff on through the night shift. Well we had a disciplinary hearing and those youth were put on a behavioral plan. If they behave theywill be released on time.......what a crock of crap. This is our way of making kids accountable? What a joke.......these boys also r earning money from the state through a summer employment program, our Director set this up so the boys can earn money while they r locked up. I know its not a lot of money but here is a way to save some bucks, quit employing the juvenile criminals and let our children at home who deserve it earn this money. The residents are also paid .25 cents a day to be locked up, this is ridiculous....why r we doing this. The workers in our facility cant hardly get a piece of copier paper to do their jobs but we r paying the kids to break the law. Our facility for the longest time has been getting a voucher from the state to buy the residents clothes ,when they leave the facility, this voucher was for 250$......as a single mom of four I can remember times I didnt have 250$ to buy my kids school clothes and had to make due. Its no wonder these kids r still assaultive and dangerous ...they can be without ANY consequence. We need more discipline in our Facilities!

As a organiztion to help these kids why r they not concentrating more on drug, mental health and special education programs. We used to have art programs in our facility also, where did this go? The funding was cut. The residents loved this so many of them r artistic. Now its all give give give and we get verbally and physically assaulted for this, or like Ms. Greco murdered. How can anyone in their right mind come up with the way we r doing things, I am totally beside myself about this. I really hope this taskforce investigates the programs thoroughly, we r losing so many good workers who really want to teach these residents something and send them out into the world to make a better difference. My thoughts and prayers r with the Greco Family.......god help us we will not let her death be swept under the rug.