Grandparents of St. Mary’s teen ‘exhausted’ with DCYF: ‘I personally regret it 100%’
by: Elizabeth Turley, Jake Holter
TIVERTON, R.I. (WPRI) — Donna Goulet-Truppi and her husband Paul Truppi are frustrated. They say the abrupt closure of St. Mary’s Home for Children — and then of the George N. Hunt School on the home’s North Providence campus — has been very difficult for their grandchild, a former resident.
“My grandchild has a seizure disorder, has depression, and was suicidal due to a lot of death in our family,” Goulet-Truppi told 12 News. “It got to the point where they had to move my grandchild out of Hasbro [Children’s Hospital], and the only availability was St. Mary’s Home.”
Goulet-Truppi and her husband said they’d heard stories about St. Mary’s Home and were clear with social workers from the Department of Children, Youth and Families (DCYF) that they did not want to see their grandchild placed at that residential psychiatric treatment facility.
“It came down to, ‘Well, if you don’t go to St. Mary’s, he could end up in Tennessee, other parts, like Florida,’” said Goulet-Truppi, who lives in Tiverton. “And we didn’t want that, because that’s not going to keep our family together. So we went with St. Mary’s.”
St. Mary’s Home for Children
In an interview with 12 News, Truppi and Goulet-Truppi described multiple concerning incidents that happened to their grandchild at St. Mary’s, including one where a staff member left an office unlocked, which allowed the child to access sharp objects and begin to self-harm.
Goulet-Truppi also detailed a time when her grandchild ran away from the home around 8 p.m. She said a staff member told her they were looking for the teen, but by the time she arrived in North Providence just after 11 p.m., that staff member had gone home.
“I went to the police department and I said, ‘You’ve got to do something,’” Goulet-Truppi recalled. “And their advice to me was, ‘Get your friends and family out here to help you look.’”
She said North Providence police didn’t show up on campus until 2 a.m.
“So nobody was out there looking for him at all.”
About 10 hours after her grandchild was originally reported missing, Goulet-Truppi received a phone call from the St. Mary’s program coordinator, whom she had not been able to reach the night before. A motorist had spotted her grandchild on I-295 and called Rhode Island State Police.
“When he left, he didn’t have his medicine,” Goulet-Truppi said. “I didn’t know if he was somewhere dead or something like that. I was begging for help. St. Mary’s did nothing.”
She told 12 News she still can’t sleep at night. “DCYF … let me down.”
Pawtucket-based Tides Family Services took over the day-to-day operations of the embattled St. Mary’s Home back in May, including the organization’s outpatient programs and the George N. Hunt School. While St. Mary’s Home for Children could not be reached for comment, Tides spokesperson Frank McMahon told 12 News, “If a child leaves the school premises, staff members follow immediately and use de-escalation techniques to encourage the child to return safely,” adding, “In the event that staff lose sight of the child, the family is notified immediately, and emergency personnel are contacted for assistance.”
Closure of St. Mary’s Home
Goulet-Truppi and her husband told 12 News that no one from St. Mary’s reached out to let them know the residential psychiatric treatment facility would be closing its doors, saying they found out from a reporter they’d been in contact with.
“They had to find new placements for [the children who were still living at St. Mary’s],” Truppi said. “They were trying to find a placement for our grandchild, but it was determined that there wasn’t anything available or appropriate, and they decided to send him home with additional support.”
The grandparents claim that the “additional support” provided by DCYF does not meet their grandchild’s needs.
“There are some good people, but the thing is, they’re just limited because the services we actually need are not the services that they’re being contracted to provide from DCYF,” Truppi said.
Relocation of St. Mary’s School
“One of the bright spots about him being at St. Mary’s was the school,” Truppi told 12 News. His grandchild was getting straight As, which made both grandparents and grandchild very happy.
So the grandparents were shocked when, two weeks before the first day of school, they learned all the students at the George N. Hunt School would be moved to a Tides facility in Pawtucket.
“The way they left it was that the school would still remain on the St. Mary’s property,” Goulet-Truppi recalled. “They couldn’t have kept that campus open for one year? Because right now the school they’re using is in Pawtucket. There’s no playground, there’s nothing there. It’s just a cement building.”
“Even though you have the same staff and a lot of the same kids, for a kid that has anxiety, and doesn’t like change, it’s very difficult,” Truppi said.
When asked to respond to complaints that the new location wasn’t conducive to learning, McMahon said, “Due to the unexpected financial challenges faced by [St. Mary’s Home for Children], Tides tapped into underutilized space in an existing facility to relocate the George N. Hunt School to allow for the continuity of educational programming.”
“We are committed to continuously evaluating programming. This includes assessing the suitability of the current site and considering potential adjustments to better meet the needs of the students and their families,” McMahon continued. “We will keep all stakeholders informed and involved in this process to ensure that any changes made are in the best interest of the students and their families.”
Transportation concerns
While Tides said the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) approved the location change for the George N. Hunt School, the closure of St. Mary’s Home means that Goulet-Truppi and Truppi’s grandchild has to be transported between their Tiverton home and the school’s Pawtucket campus each day. And Goulet-Truppi says the drivers are not trained to deal with her grandchild’s disabilities.
“There’s kids that are disabled that are riding on these vans or buses where people don’t even know what their disability is,” she said. “Nobody knows he has seizures, so he’s going to be in the back and have a seizure and nobody’s gonna know what’s going on.”
Like with other out-of-town school placements, local school departments are responsible for arranging transportation to Pawtucket for Tides students.
“Tiverton School Department … they are working on it, but it’s the bus company that’s not doing anything,” Goulet-Truppi confirmed. “I tried calling and you’re on hold. There’s nobody in the office to call to speak to on something like that.”
She added that because it has been so difficult to contact the bus company and make sure the drivers are trained to follow her grandchild’s seizure plan, they’ve had to rely on DCYF and its contractors for transportation.
“But there’s different people every day,” she said, adding that DCYF’s personnel are also unaware of the seizure plan. “So, you know, that’s another thing that our grandson has to deal with.”
When asked for comment, DCYF told 12 News, “Long-term transportation needs are being coordinated through the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE), and immediate transportation needs are being supported by a DCYF social worker. All social workers are trained to immediately contact 911 in the event of a medical emergency.”
DCYF involvement
Goulet-Truppi and Truppi say they regret ever seeking help from DCYF to deal with their grandchild’s behavioral issues.
“We were told by doctors that they could provide more services for us if we got DCYF involved,” Goulet-Truppi said. “I personally regret it 100%.”
“In the state of Rhode Island, that was really the only place that was the go-to place for DCYF to send kids to. DCYF licensed St. Mary’s, they funded St. Mary’s, and they were the regulatory body for St. Mary’s. And I think that that’s part of the problem,” Truppi said. “DCYF needed St. Mary’s to have a place for kids to go to that they couldn’t place anywhere else … So they allowed things to slide. But in the end, it didn’t do anybody any good.”
Leah Crowley contributed to this report.