Tracking Our Troubled Children
MARGOLIS, RICHARD J.
States of the Union TRACKING OUR TROUBLED CHILDREN BY RICHARD J. MARGOLIS Saturday nights arethehardest. "The kids get spastic on weekends," a caseworker explains. "They're really tough to...
...Hello Again...
...Salvia doesn't look up...
...Bored," she says...
...The kids can drive you nuts, of course...
...They're called 'Consequences.'" At William's place, the foster mother is still in her apron and still ignorant of William's whereabouts...
...She finds one at an Exxon station...
...He left early tonight," the manager tells us...
...She says this weekend of work is typical of all her weekends...
...Where will Ben be tonight...
...Tiajuana is going to a dance: "She's supposed to be in by 10...
...It's past eight now, and dark...
...He wasn't home when he was supposed to be, so I went to look for him...
...I'll try again in an hour or two," Ellen tells her...
...By deinstitutional standards, KEY is no puny enterprise...
...There was this 15-year-old who'd been convicted of armed robbery—not one of your easier kids...
...But Lonnie, we learn, is not there...
...Nope," they answer— then one changes his mind...
...We go first to a black neighborhood, comer of Sycamore and Acorn...
...It is 5 p.m...
...But now Buddy is missing, too...
...Salvia, who is 14 years old and pregnant, is sixth on our list...
...We do special things with the kids on Sundays—take them to museums or to the arcade, or play football with them, things like that...
...I am visiting an " outreach and tracking center" near downtown Springfield, Massachusetts...
...And then I make sure he gets to bed by curfew time, which on school nights is 10 o'clock...
...Wesley Cotter, KEY'S regional director in central Massachusetts, puts it another way...
...There's an algebra book lying on the kitchen table but it's closed...
...They both laugh...
...Didn't say where he was goin...
...He wasn't supposed to go out tonight...
...Just another brawl in a bar...
...Checking the whereabouts of some 70 adolescents, each one in trouble with the courts, is the name of the game here at the center in Springfield...
...Said he had to get home for something...
...He's grounded this weekend...
...At Lonnie's house no one answers the doorbell that Ellen keeps leaning on...
...Time's a-wasting...
...By 6:15 the rundown is finished...
...They will be driving around Springfield till the wee hours of the morning, searching for kids on their lists, hoping there will be no big surprises...
...We haven't seen him since...
...Two teenage kids living here with foster parents," she explains as she runs...
...The little house belongs to the KEY Program, a statewide nonprofit group formed 15 years ago, after the state shut down all five of its big gray reformatories...
...He gets out at 9 and he's supposed to go straight home...
...He informs Ellen that his roommate William isn't there...
...The idea back then was to "deinstitutionalize" the kids, to get them out from behind bars and into small, home-based programs, where intensive care might make them whole...
...We rush back to the car...
...Casey's upstairs...
...They always do come back...
...Four young caseworkers and two supervisors sit at a table examining tonight's roster...
...Ellen asks her...
...Sunday mornings the caseworkers don't have to come in till 10...
...Sometimes I see the same kid four different times in one day...
...I take him to his job after school...
...About half of KEY'S annual budget goes into "tracking"—a herculean and often thankless task that the organization's brochure describes in the blandest of terms: "Clients are monitored through a prearranged schedule in order that the staff knows their activities and whereabouts, both day and night...
...That's one that literally got away from us...
...Benjamin is in the living room watching TV...
...I take him home after work...
...He's in deep trouble...
...His mother is used to me...
...Ellen finds a note wedged in the door...
...I got a surprise a few weeks ago," one of the caseworkers, Ellen Gallman, says on our way to the parking lot...
...Benjamin is supposed to be doing homework tonight...
...If he comes back," saysEllen, "tell him I want to see him pronto...
...The foster mother is a large woman wearing a stained apron...
...We drive to the suburbs, pulling up in front of the Stop & Shop supermarket where Lonnie is supposed to be bagging groceries...
...Joanna "promised to be home before 8. If she gives her mother a hard time let her have it, 'causelalreadytalked to her about that...
...I get him up in the morning...
...It receives over $8 million a year from the state, and $4.3 million of that comes from the Department of Youth Services (DYS), the agency entrusted with punishing and reclaiming delinquent children...
...Then I got out and called the police...
...He'sapretty good kid," she says, "but he gets into a lot of fights...
...He got in a fight with his mom so I brought him back for the night...
...The thing about these kids is they always come home...
...He's on probation for assault and battery...
...The caseworkers disperse...
...Have you seen him tonight...
...Probably I'll take him back to the office," she says, "and make him stay the night...
...I have to find a phone...
...It says, "Gone to see movie...
...That's right," the woman agrees...
...We drive to another neighborhood, where the houses are bigger and stand further apart...
...Hurry up...
...How about Casey...
...How you feeling...
...They're really tough to keep track of...
...The sheets display last names only—Rivera, Buckley, Hammer, Pebley—but the caseworkers recognize them all on a first-name basis...
...I saw him yesterday morning...
...They good boys...
...She drives back to Acorn Street and slowly cruises the block...
...That's OK," she says, "if he really went to a movie...
...Buddy comes downstairs...
...Called to say he'd be home late because he had to work overtime at Stop & Shop...
...No hanging around Hamburger Heaven...
...So back we go to find them...
...Rick...
...Most of these kids," he says," are going to outgrow their delinquency...
...Now comes the hard part—making sure the kids are where they're supposed to be...
...It'spart of the give-and-take: The kids who have misbehaved don't get to go on these weekly outings...
...That's what I want," she says...
...In the next block she finds four small boys bouncing on a torn mattress someone has dumped near curbside...
...Provision of overnight care and counseling is called "Tracking Plus...
...We make them account for every moment of their lives...
...The ultimate reward is that we get off their backs...
...In 16 months on the job Ellen has logged 34,000 miles...
...There is yet another way to describe the job caseworkers at KEY are asked to perform: They must become surrogate parents...
...There are quite a few more kids to visit in the neighborhood and we spend the next hour tracking them...
...That means somebody has called the office and left a message for me...
...he skipped school Thursday and Friday...
...Tomorrow I'll ask him to tell me the plot...
...We're looking for little kids to ask, because little kids don't know enough to lie for somebody...
...I seen him," he tells Ellen...
...Did you do your homework yet...
...Lonnie's working tonight at Stop & Shop...
...You're going to meet Benjamin," Ellen announces...
...Ellen doesn't want to leave the neighborhood untilshe'sfoundWilliam...
...Real bored...
...When something like thathappens, you have to call the police right away...
...Ronnie "is a real pain in the ass—wants rides everywhere...
...Around 10:30 we stop on a dark country road across from a little shack without lights...
...There are several beds upstairs for kids who need a night or two away from home...
...Ellen will be my guide tonight...
...In theory, every youth has been accounted for...
...Sheis watching a Dallasrerun...
...She is interrupted by the sound of her beeper...
...Tonight, she says, "we're going to see about 20 kids...
...They turn out to be all present and accounted for, all at home, all in front of TV sets...
...Ellen parks near a tavern with a United Way sign out front—"We're All In This Together"—and runs to the house nextdoor...
...I ask...
...They're all over town...
...I never thought I could work so hard," shesays, "but Iloveit...
...Does that mean yes or no...
...We get out and climb the rickety porch...
...It was Lonnie," she says when she comes back...
...He in a house some place...
...I smell trouble...
...asks Ellen...
...and the staff doesn' t yet know where its children are...
...They'll have to come home sooner or later...
...I want to know what Ellen will do with Lonnie when she finds him...
...Tomorrow maybe I' 11 tell him to write an essay for me, on a subject like 'Why It Doesn't Pay to Lie.' Or I may have him write the same thing 50 times in a notebook such as: 'I will not forget to leave a message, I will not forget to leave a message....' We make a lot of writing assignments like that...
...Aren't you afraid of waking up the family...
...But while they were all standing around, the kid ran into the woods and vanished...
...Ben better be home...
...Kneeling on the mattress, she asks, "Do any of you know Willie Rice...
...Many of those children are halfway to freedom: They are out of detention but still in official custody...
...He'd rather sleep in than go to school, so I roust him out of bed at 7, rain or shine...
...He left a long time ago...
...We have to watch them not just once a week or even once a day, but all the time...
...Oh, oh," Ellen mutters...
...Truth is not Lonnie's strong suit...
...We seem to have finished our Saturday night tracking now, except for a couple of loose ends named Lonnie and William...
...He's grounded...
...Indeed, the responsibilities they assume—keeping track of kids around the clock—are ones that most parents would consider all in a night's work...
...The recitation continues: Collin "went to the orthodontist—he broke his braces...
...The big difference is in the number of kids who need watching, and in their erratic histories...
...It means sort of...
...I found him, too...
...Anyway, they arrested him later that night and handcuffed him...
...Later they begin to understand that if they live up to their contracts, they get rewarded...
...Like her fellow caseworkers, she is in her mid-twenties and full of energy...
...In the meantime it'sup to us to keep them out of trouble, to get them through adolescence in one piece...
...On our way to "the boonies" Ellen talks about her job...
...She just opens the door and points me toward Benjamin's bedroom...
...He come home and he go out...
...But one of these days I'm sure he'll show up again in the neighborhood...
...Saturday's child works for a living...
...Benjamin says "Uh huh...
...We stared at each other through our car windows...
...The family is supposed to care enough to answer the bell...
...Buddy," she calls, "the KEY people wanna talk to you...
...Ellen gets out of the car...
...One or two live way out in theboonies...
...She is not entirely sure...
...Some kids resent all that supervision, especially at first...
...He was driving a stolen auto...
...Igotonly four hours of sleep last night and I'll probably get about the same tonight...
...I see Benjamin just about every morning, 'cause he's got a truancy problem...
Vol. 71 • June 1988 • No. 11
