A youth mental health and substance abuse treatment center in Brush Prairie can continue to operate after the center and the Washington State Department of Health came to an agreement last month placing conditions on its licenses to operate.
The department announced last month that it and Daybreak Youth Services had entered an agreement, close to a year after it had initially announced an intent to revoke the treatment center’s licenses. According to the announcement, Daybreak failed to meet legal standards for “quality improvement, safety and security, admission procedures, sufficient staffing, health care services, medication management, resident rights and failure to report critical incidents.”
As part of the agreement, the treatment center will have restrictions on patient evaluations, treatment and admissions, according to the announcement. Daybreak would also have to use a consultant to review and recommend policy and procedure changes and submit regular reports to the department while also allowing department inspections and visits.
In November 2018, the department announced its intent to revoke the licenses, citing a report that center staff and patients’ safety was allegedly in jeopardy due to “numerous youth resident elopements, physical altercations and sexual assaults.”
The decision came from allegations that the center did not report or follow up on incidents at the facility among other claims of non-compliance with personnel training policies and a staff-to-patient requirement, the 2018 announcement of the intent stated.
In a statement regarding the agreement, Daybreak pointed out that its licenses remained intact and that it did not limit the treatment center’s ability to operate. It added that the agreement allowed for entities that had stopped referring youth to the center to resume directing clients there for evaluation.
“This is likely due to the fact the Agreed Order rejects the salacious allegations made in the Notices and affirms Daybreak’s position that those allegations were not supported by credible facts,” Daybreak’s statement read.
Alleged issues at the treatment center came to light in September 2018 when the Clark County Sheriff’s Office served several search warrants against Daybreak. In June of that year sheriff Chuck Atkins had sent a letter to the health department alerting them of reports his office had received about the center.
The treatment center’s statement pointed to policy and procedure changes it had made in the past several months following leadership changes including the appointment of chief executive officer Thomas Russell. The center stated the changes, including the use of a consultant to make recommendations, “will make Daybreak an industry leader in the treatment of adolescents suffering from substance use disorder and mental health conditions.”
Daybreak’s statement listed several of the changes, including updating security features, creating new staff training and a dedicated position for coordinating the training, and serving all male clients at the Brush Prairie location and all females at Daybreak Youth Services’ other location in Spokane.
“At our core, Daybreak is here to save young people’s lives by demonstrating love and bringing hope for their future. We do this by creating a safe environment built upon the commitment to transparency and excellence,” Russell was quoted in the statement.
The statement also pointed to a related case in the Washington Court of Appeals where Daybreak challenged the seizure of treatment records during the investigation of the center. It stated a court commissioner “found unequivocally that Daybreak has the right to appeal” orders in Clark County Superior Court denying the challenge, and the ruling allows the issues to be heard by the appeals court.
