I work at a Residential Treatment Center . An RTC for short. I work with kids who were either given up or taken from their homes. Sometimes it's because the parents did nothing wrong but they just can't handle the kid. But usually it's because the parents are asshats and the kid has been raised by said asshats and came out with any number of sociological and psychological problems. And the asshats throw their hands up in the air and shipped them off .





If I think too hard about the treatment of some of these sad faces I get angry. And their is nothing I can do about it. I try to focus on the girls now and do what I can to get them to trust me and I try to make them laugh as often as possible. They haven't had enough laughter in their lives. Not to get all hippy on you here but I feel like their problems all stem from not getting enough love from day one. So I try and remember that when they are trying our patience. It's all attention seeking behavior.





Recently a boy in a Texas RTC died from a restraint. He was basically smothered to death. According to the news story the boy was restrained by one person, in a closet and died from asphyxiation. My first problem was why the fuck were they in a closet? Secondly one man restraints are frowned upon, they are unsafe for the child and the restrainer. And the smothering, it takes some time to smother someone to death. It's not like in the movies. The child would have gone limp after losing consciousness and the employee should have let go immediately and called 911. Obviously there's no proof, but the employee would have had to continue to "restrain" (i.e. smother) him for a while after he passed out for him to die. And if you dig further you find out that Texas Department of Child Safety already had this treatment center on probation. Because two other children had died during restraints, and the staff had made two developmentally disabled girls fist fight over a snack. You know what they're probation included? No new placements. What the fuck? Two children die and the staff manipulating mentally ill children. But they are still open? The government had a hand in this boys death. Period.





I'm sorry. I'm ranting. Where I work we only do restraint if the child is going to hurt themselves or someone else. And some kids we don't even do restraints, either they are too big and will hurt us, or because it traumatizes them more. It has to be a two person restraint and if the child goes limp we release immediately. We have constant classes on restraint reduction. Restraint is our very last resort.





At the beginning of my shift I had to perform a short personal restraint. That just means I held their arm or hand to prevent them from hurting me or themselves. And I still feel bad about it. I feel like I violated her space and should have talked to her more. Every time I feel bad, during it and afterwards. It makes me sick to think of Sunday going through the things she went through. I want to hug her, but she probably has trust issues.



