Dallas County center says many teenagers are escaping neglect and violence, but population growth is a factor, too

12:00 AM CST on Monday, January 21, 2008

From Staff Reports

Dallas County's Letot Center is feeling the strain of a sharp rise in teenage runaways housed there, an influx the center's superintendent attributes to a dramatic rise in parental neglect.

"Our term is 'throwaway.' They are throwing away their children," said Sam Quattrochi, who has worked at the residential treatment center for 28 years. "They are wanting someone else to parent their children."

Mr. Quattrochi said the 27 percent surge in Letot's population last year also reflects an increase in domestic violence, both "parent on child and child on parent."

Such problems often stem from economic factors, he said. Parents working multiple jobs may not be able to give their children the necessary attention, and teens express their anger by leaving home.

"A lot more children are basically fleeing their homes, fleeing abuse, neglect," Mr. Quattrochi said.

The problem is not unique to the area Letot serves, but Dallas' 214 area code was responsible for more calls to the National Runaway Switchboard, a hotline for at-risk youth, than almost anywhere else in 2006.

That didn't surprise Mike Griffiths, the county's director of juvenile services, who noted that the city is a hub for immigration and a stopover point for runaways headed elsewhere.

"It is indicative of our community's needs for mental health, substance abuse and other social context factors," he said. "Many youth are escaping from something.

"Dallas is a big metro area, and they sometimes get caught in a net."

While Mr. Griffiths acknowledged that juvenile referrals to facilities like Letot have increased in recent years, he said that trend can partly be attributed to the area's growing population.

"It's not that significant of an increase when you look at per capita factors," he said.

'Drain on the staff'

At Letot, staff members took in 1,227 teens last year through November, compared with 965 teens during the same period in 2006.

"It is a real drain on the staff," Mr. Quattrochi said. "What we are having to do is accelerate our length of stay and move kids through the process more quickly."

The demand for beds at Letot means the center can't house as many children for other agencies, such as Child Protective Services, he said.

CPS spokeswoman Marissa Gonzales said the Letot Center has a contract with her agency to care for up to 40 children.

"We have a difficult time placing children all of the time," Ms. Gonzales said. "Diminished capacity of any foster home in any county is going to affect our ability to place children."

Besides youths placed under contract, Mr. Griffiths said, those brought to Letot tend to fall into two other categories: runaways and other children needing supervision, and girls rescued through a police anti-prostitution initiative.

Program manager Marta Ballesté said the center must address each of their problems with individualized counseling and academic programs. Nearly 60 percent of the children at the center have abused drugs such as "cheese" heroin, cocaine and marijuana, while many of the girls, who make up 78 percent of its population, have turned to prostitution, she said.

"You can become very endeared to these children," said Ms. Ballesté, watching as a group of girls talked and joked with one another in a recreation room. "They come from terrible, terrible backgrounds."

Nearly one in three children brought to the center has suffered sexual exploitation, officials say. That compares with figures from the National Runaway Switchboard showing that 80 percent of runaway and homeless girls reported having been sexually or physically abused.

"We are seeing an increase in children that are being exploited by adults, neighbors, people they meet on the Net and fleeing those kinds of situations," Mr. Quattrochi said.

214 calls

The national switchboard, which aims to keep such children off the streets, received 2,728 calls from Dallas' 214 area code in 2006, the latest year for which the agency has compiled such figures. That nearly matches the 2,761 calls from all five New York City area codes, and it's more than any area code nationwide except the region around Sacramento, Calif.

"Texas is always in our top states," switchboard spokeswoman Katie Walsh said.

While worried teachers and parents sometimes call the hotline, about half of the calls come from runaways themselves, spokesman Joel Kessel said.

"If a 17-year-old calls and asks for help, we will be able to tap into our database and find what resources are available where they are calling from," he said. "We are able to help them map out a plan of action and are able to help refer them to counselors and resources in their area."

Dallas police receive thousands of runaway reports a year. Most children come home after a day or two, but eight detectives concentrate on identifying those at the highest risk of abusing drugs or being victims of sexual abuse, said Lt. Robert Hinton of the youth operations unit. He said the upswing in reports of runaways matches an increase in juvenile crime among children ages 10 to 14 who are abusing drugs.

The youths can be taken into custody, Lt. Hinton said, but many instead end up at Letot, where they are released to their parents or placed in a counseling program.

"We are fortunate in Dallas because we have a Letot Center," Mr. Griffiths said. "Many communities don't have that resource."

The center, formed in 1979 through a joint effort by the county's Juvenile Department, the Dallas school district and the Junior League of Dallas, is staffed with 60 professionals, most with advanced degrees. More than 2,400 children and their families receive services at Letot every year.

In 1990, a new $3 million facility was built with private money. The county budgets $3 million annually in operational costs.

Despite the increasing pressure on his facility, Mr. Quattrochi said county commissioners have been generous with the juvenile services budget.

"Our system is pretty healthy," he said. "We have the largest continuum of services for runaways in the United States."

Staff writer Jenni Beauchamp and Sergio Chapa of Al Día contributed to this report.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/DN-
runaways_21met.ART.State.Edition1.37a0c92.html

Emphasis added by H4K Editor