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- File: Jeb Wallace-Brodeur
- Woodside Juvenile Rehabilitation Center in 2007
After fighting all the way to the Vermont Supreme Court for the right to build a small juvenile treatment facility in Newbury, state officials are now reconsidering that plan.
Instead, officials may build a
“state-of-the-art, short-term, secure crisis stabilization and treatment facility” in South Burlington or Vergennes, according to Chris Winters, commissioner of the Department for Children and Families.
The 15-bed facility would be specifically designed for youths in the justice system, including those who have shown destructive or assaultive behavior, who are a flight risk or are a risk to themselves or others.
“We have to reevaluate what we’re doing in Newbury,” Winters told lawmakers last week.
Since 2020, DCF has searched for ways to fill the need for a secure youth treatment facility following the closure of the Woodside Juvenile Rehabilitation Center. The locked 30-bed facility in Essex for children ages 10 to 17 was shuttered following dwindling use and allegations that staff abused troubled youths, including using isolation and excessive force.
To replace Woodside, the state proposed several different facilities, including a six-bed center in rural Newbury on the site of a former bed-and-breakfast.
That faced pushback from locals who argued that it was more of a detention facility than a group home. The project nevertheless got the green light from the Vermont Supreme Court on December 21.
The ruling means that the state retains the right to move forward with a facility of some kind in Newbury. But first, Winters said, the state needs to see how it would mesh with other potential treatment facilities.
During the years of legal wrangling, the state considered other places to house young people in trouble. T
hose options are now beginning to bear fruit, he said.
“Out of necessity, we needed to push other options forward,” Winters told
Seven Days on Monday.
The state is temporarily reopening four beds in the former Middlesex Therapeutic Community Residence. The site was previously used to house people displaced from the Vermont State Hospital in Waterbury following 2011’s Tropical Storm Irene. It is nearly ready for occupancy, and the state is close to selecting an operator, Winters told lawmakers.
The state is eyeing private land in South Burlington or a piece of public land in Vergennes for the secure 15-bed facility, Winters told lawmakers. The state has asked three different builders for proposals to design and build a facility that the state would lease with an option to buy.
Proposals are due on February 9, after which officials from DCF and the Department of Buildings and General Services would pick a preferred site. It would likely take a year to design and permit and another year to build, making 2026 the earliest opening, Winters said.
Vergennes and South Burlington were selected because of the properties available in those places, Winters said. The locations may prove easier to staff than remote Newbury, he added.
Lawmakers were heartened to hear that the new facility might allow the state to move some of the juveniles housed in other states back to Vermont. But they also expressed concern that state officials were moving forward with a facility without any apparent community or legislative engagement.
Winters said state officials were trying to act quickly, but Rep. Theresa Wood (D-Waterbury) said the lack of legislative input was concerning.
“We really would ask you to go back and rethink that,” she told Winters.