 All right, thank you. We're back after break continuing our testimony related to the current hat and school update, and our next witness is Kim Daugherty co founder and partner of the justice law collaborative Kim welcome thank you for being here. And we have your testimony on our web page so we will follow along. Why don't you introduce yourself for the record and then we'll, we'll listen. Thank you, Senator lions and thank you also to the Senate committees on judiciary health and welfare and education. I appreciate everyone who's here today to participate meaningfully in these discussions to unearth what has happened over the past few decades at current hot and, but more importantly, in the interest of rectifying the damage that has been done, and ensuring that children are protected in the future. We did hear those questions from the senators and we appreciate those questions because that's really truly what this is about. This is about children, children are a blessing and a privilege many of us feel that way who have our own, and to have them in our care is also a blessing and a privilege. We also know that when they're young, they're in their most most formidable years, and that they're vulnerable, and that they need guidance and protection and safeguards. And with that means that the caregivers are critically important to their development and their welfare in the future. It's unfortunate that we are here today to talk about decades of horrific abuse that occurred at current hat and homes for children. It's truly tragic and heartbreaking to hear the stories and the testimonials of the many, many people that I currently represent. We represent approximately 34 people who range in the ages of 11 years old to 80 years old, who suffer tragically while they're within the care of current hat and the abuses we put forth in our testimony and as I will present today is well documented just through their testimonials, but also in the most more recent years through the records from the Department of Children and Family Services, and also the Vermont State Police Department. Now, we don't have to be experts to understand childhood trauma and the long lasting effects that it has, but I will also share some information on that as well. As a master's in social work. I also have a lot of experience in that area. And back in the 1990s I actually worked in the child protection unit in the Manhattan Family Court system as a social worker with lawyers. And I think it's important for us all to understand what this type of trauma and the effect this type of trauma has on people. That everyone is here today to hear from me. It's a privilege and an honor to be here on behalf of all the survivors we thank you very much from our viewpoint. The inadequacies and the failures that we will set forth today are tragic and they permeated this institution for decades in today we believe it's now time for action. We need immediate action to provide some sense of justice to not only the survivors, but also to ensure that children are currently in the care of Kernhattan are protected from harm. And I just want to recognize before I start to present and acknowledge and appreciate the questions that the senators are asking of the agency of education of the Department of Children and Welfare, and of all the people that hopefully will be discussed and in the future. As we unravel and we look at how we can remedy and this this issue, and we have to acknowledge that it went on for so long, it went on for decades, and that many people at Kernhattan, and also other state agencies and elsewhere failed children for years. I thank you for being the first people to give these survivors a sense that they won't be failed in the future. And now, if I could share my screen. I think Nellie will give me permission. You should have that ability already. Okay. Apologies for the technological delay I think I have it here now. Is the screen visible. Yes, it is. Thank you. And Kim, just, just so you know, we're, we're slightly behind schedule, given our late beginning at, at nine and a little after nine. So, any consolidation that you can do would be extremely helpful. Right. We'll definitely do that. And this is available also to the senators. And I believe it's going to be uploaded on the webpage so you can look at it. And if anyone has any further questions, they can let me know afterwards. I just was going to have it. We do have it on our webpage and we can see it on screen. Great. Thank you. And if you have any questions and you please feel free to interrupt me along the way. The testimonial evidence is what we have from back in the 50s, the 60s and the 70s. As you can see here we've put forth some information regarding multiple issues of abuse broken bones neglect, not bringing children to hospitals allowing them to go with broken bones and ear infection so long that they have and curable scarring. We continue to see in the beginning history of sexual molestation. These are staff members, some of the executive directors in the past and house parents in the 60s were molesting some of the children there. There were torturous routines of exercise, there were incidents of children being left outside in the cold, freezing without a coat until they fell unconscious in the snow. There are multiple issues of feeding children sumac, making children re-eat their own vomit and also not providing them any food at all if there were some punishments. These are the sort of things that were happening in our reported back in the 50s, 60s and 70s. As we get into the 80s we finally have some documentation of what was happening there. There was the continuation of the same type of neglect of physical abuse, of emotional abuse and also of sexual misconduct. These are instances here where we've set forth various pieces of this timeline where there was a 12 year old that was repeatedly raped by a Kern-Hatton staff member. The issue here is that notice was provided to Kern-Hatton related to this it was observed and instead of helping this young girl they brought her to an OB-GYN to fit her for a diaphragm allowing the 26 year old staff member to continue to repeatedly rape her and then upon graduation gave her birth control pills. We then go on and see a 6 year old girl who was sexually assaulted by older peers by sticking Barbie doll legs in her vagina and in her anus. Again we'll see a theme here when we see the peer on peer abuse that it is an issue of lack of supervision that's happening at Kern-Hatton and also inappropriate aging of people within the cottages and allowing access of 14 year olds to 6 year olds. And I think it goes without saying that sexual conduct is not something that's normal for a 6, 7, 8, 9 year old. That's not something they are aware of. They're immature. They learn these types of behaviors from others and that is one of the main issues that's troubled Kern-Hatton for decades, the lack of supervision and putting children in inappropriate situations with older children where they have access. And you all probably are well familiar with the Mark Davis error. Mark Davis was actually a let me go to this one slide here. So when we go I want to go back before the Mark Davis error and talk here in 1984 this is where we first start seeing DCF notice and note the multiple issues and violations and non compliance issues that are happening at Kern-Hatton. It's talking about one child abuse to inappropriate physical intervention. Three, the use in a childcare capacity of adult who are not subject to Kern-Hatton's policies, meaning, I think at one point in time there were house husbands of house parents who were physically aggressive and using firearms around the children. There's a continuation of the staff who previous actions suggest an inability to adequately perform their childcare services so meaning they're continuing to have staff members on that are not appropriate or trained appropriately. And this document goes on to talk about the lack of sufficient training, and also the lack of formal staff evaluations and this goes back to the 1980s. You'll see there's a consistent sort of theme here throughout where these are issues that are not rectified by Kern-Hatton. And as I mentioned we were well familiar probably with the Mark Davis years. He was found guilty of molesting multiple boys, the allegations I believe were up to 14 different children. He would go into their rooms. He would drug them at night, some of them, some of them not, he would go in and push their faces into a pillow and forcibly rape them and sodomize them. He interestingly was fired from or well he was allowed to be let go from Kern-Hatton before these sexual assaults took place. In December of 1988, he was allowed to resign from Kern-Hatton after being allegations of serious physical abuse. Well just six months later he's back on the premises as a substitute house parent and a spouse of a house parent and a substitute staff member going on to rape and molest at least 14 boys. So in 1989 DCF starts to notice also that students were routinely being isolated for long periods of time. At that point in time, the policies in place were to only allow 30 minutes of isolation. These children were being locked in their rooms for over a day and not allowed out until it was time for dinner. So DCF is noting those issues. Here's the police report related to Mark Davis and actually I misspoke at 17 boys who were accused him of touching him and we know of some of our clients who while they were molested, denied it to the police so we believe that number is an underestimation of what happened. Now in the 1990s, the abuse continues. The physical abuse continues to be perpetrated. Children are forcibly put again into solitary confinement for hours. They're not given food. There's no natural sunlight. There are other house parents again that are molesting children forcing them to perform sexual acts. There's inappropriate aging, lack of supervision. And peer abuse is continuing to be rampant with older children manipulating and teaching, I would say younger children and that that's where this generation of sexual assault continues to become a cycle. It's been happening since the 50s it's continuing to happen now into the 90s and into the 2000s. There are DCF notations of issues with peer on peer sexual relations. There's issues again noted by DCF about the isolation techniques, but again, no action is taken, and their approval, their conditional approval continues. They continue to be a school that has children there. Now in the 2000s to 2009, again, staff were regularly beating children. There were notations of choking them. Children were sexually molested and again, sodomized by peers in the reports. The DCF reports which we cite in our letter in our papers show that there were issues with current hot and documenting the physical abuse, that there were issues with them reporting it and that these issues were also being ignored by the house parents who were well aware of them. Now as we get into the into 2010 and 2015 this is where we really see a lot more documentation of all of the abuse in addition to the testimonial issues that we see. There's again an issue here in the early 2000s of a nine year old in a cottage with a 13 year old who was sodomized and forced to perform sexual acts. The student ran away from home multiple times and because of this abuse and the police reports launched in 2018 essentially said there's nothing we can do because they're both minors. So again we see DCF documenting things we see the Vermont State Police documenting things but nobody taking any action, including current hot. So in 2015. There's again issues of forced rape for sex. We have these documented now well documented in the record. Nothing happened there. Unfortunately, nothing happened. Again, we have continuous physical abuse house parents shaking and grabbing children, students being molested and raped by peers again, a female student who was assaulted multiple times by another student who she was placed in the room with. The executive director son, specifically soliciting nude photos from young girls and sorry it's asking me to admit someone I think Nellie are you admitting that person. I think Nellie may have admitted someone. Sorry about that for that interruption. This is the document related to the foster son of the executive director, seeking nude photos from 12 year olds and attempting to get other nude photos of another 13 year old. He allowed continued access despite these issues being raised while he was working in the capacity as in a cafe as a cafeteria worker and allowed contact continuously with these girls to continue to harass them for nude photos. Again, nothing was done about this. When we get into 2017. This is where a lot of these issues with the touching club become aware. The touching club as you all probably know has gone on for multiple years we'll get into some documents related to that. Again, cyclical peer upon peer abuse that was never stopped was learned from the assaults they were, they were being subject to by staff members and then continuing to be taught to children. Another issue that was noted in DCF record, where there was one peer who would insert toothbrush into the other peers vagina. She basically was able to do this for two years straight. They allow they were clearly unsupervised. This continued to happen. The girls were so afraid to report it, because the girl told them that she would kill them in their sleep with a knife. So this is more of the documentation. This is from the police report, regarding that toothbrush issues, and that it was happening in private areas and bathrooms and bedrooms. Again, there's another issue here that we see documented that these were not reported timely. These were told to Nancy Richardson back in February and the report didn't happen until April. And she's quoted by DCF is saying, I just figured that's what girls do. I don't know about you but I've never heard of girls forcing masturbation with a toothbrush on another girl and saying I will kill you with a knife in your sleep. If you tell anyone that it's just unheard of. I think we've got another admission issue Nellie someone trying to get in. Kim, Kim, we're okay. And we're taking care of it. Don't don't even don't even worry about it. We're all set. Okay, anytime I am not able to move the slide I assume that's the issue. Sorry. Yeah, no, if we did we we allowed some ascender back in, but you're okay. Thank you. Sorry about that. It's kind of sometimes it's good to have an interruption from these documents anyway and I recognize how difficult it is to see this and, you know, it's very triggering so if anyone needs a break to and needs me to pause please let me know. This is additional documentation of boy on boy assault and again another boy on an older boy on a younger boy. Forcing him in the bathroom to be anally raped. This boy actually yelled and screamed but yet no one came. There was adequate supervision, perhaps that abuse wouldn't have continued on for two years. This boy did try to act out and try to tell people that he was being harmed. And interestingly in this case, the person who was molesting him had already been identified by current hat and earlier that year in 2016 as having propensities for sexual misconduct. When removing the kid from the facility they put him in our client's bedroom and allowed him to continue to have access to to abuse and assault multiple other children and multiple other boys. And in this instance, the house parents also when interviewed by DCF acknowledged that they were aware of the perpetrator acting out specifically so that he could be at the same bedtime as our client. So it was clear that there was knowledge going on here at current hat and for multiple years of this type of abuse and people not doing anything to stop it. And finally, in 2019 DCF starts to scrutinize the more of the residential treatment facility piece of current hat and then anything but perhaps that's where we finally see some, some action and documentation actually resulting in more investigation here. The report that they released details dozens of instances of sexual abuse and neglect. It also indicates that there are multiple issues with this touching club where children are being forcibly molested. Also, inappropriate provision of medication by house parents this is a very lengthy report I would encourage everyone to read it if you haven't had a chance to already, but here are some highlights that we pulled of it. Again, failing to report 1217 child abuse regulatory interventions took place, at least three were not reported in the required timeframe. Then it goes on to talk about their their system in 2015 that they put in place for incident reports, and then at least 10 of those should have been reported, but they were not reported. This is how the cycle of abuse continues. Again, of a female student and multiple students between the ages of six to 12 that are coerced to prove provide sexual acts lack of supervision this is where it happens you'll see if you look at these documents stairwells, bathrooms, auditoriums, all these places in the bushes outside. No one's watching what's happening. And that's why this continues to happen. This is documented by DCF. It goes on. Again, no staff in the hallways happen when they're asleep being multiple instances of sexual assault peer on peer. Again we see here, the age difference the older children who are perpetrating on the younger children. So then the touching club is also identified by DCF. One of their own internal staff members, Carrie Newton wrote this piece of the report in their minute notes that we were able to access. She said this is an issue that's becoming systemic, and that it's directly attributable to the lack of follow through and bad judgment calls of the administration. It was adamant that Steve Harrison and Sue Kessler know of these incidents and concerns. This is a problem. This is someone internal. She goes on to talk about the concerns that the director of counseling Christine Reed has as to the inaccurate information that Kern Hatton is putting in the incident reports concerning the touching club. And that they did not explain the sexualized behavior in those reports. And again Nancy Richardson just allowed one of these perpetrators to remain on campus for another four days because she forgot about them. What happened during those four days to other children. I put together these two slides just to kind of take a snapshot of years and years and years of non compliance and violations that were occurring at Kern Hatton to query why didn't anything happen. You know in the words of one of our clients why didn't anyone notice. You know you see this year after year after year non compliance violation of regulations but they continue have condition they continue to have conditional approval and house 120 students. Then into the 2000s I kind of just had to cut to 2015 forward and this isn't even all of the incidents. These are just the highlights of the incidents. So I have to ask her it begs it begs the question why did DCF or the Vermont State Police not do more. Why didn't Kern Hatton do something about this. Why did it have to take survivors coming forward for anyone to act. Because that's truly what happened when survivors got brave enough to speak about these incidents. Finally, something started to happen. So I'd like to turn to the effects of trauma. These are just some statements that we've heard from our clients. I went there a troubled kid and came out broken. I could hardly breathe. I was in a panic. There was no safe place. There was no place I could be okay. They all protected me. They all got away with it for so many years. They all knew there isn't a piece of me that doesn't believe that my friend committed suicide as a result of the abuse at Kern Hatton. I'm his voice now. And now that all the others who can't speak for themselves. I'm their voice. We can't prevent what happened to us. We can't prevent what happened to the rest of us, but we can make sure going forward nothing happens to them. The cycle of abuse must be broken. But before that can happen, Kern Hatton needs to acknowledge its role in it and stop denying it. I will quickly go through these slides. I'm sure you all can spend time on these later if you want to know a little bit more about the effects of childhood abuse on people into the future. This is a story from cognition, physical health, emotions, relationships, mental health, behavior and brain development. You can see here these are studies literally on how abuse and trauma affects parts of the brain and how the neurons that are under toxic stress become damaged. And these, again, a reminder of like this is this is the time when their brains are developing and they're so young. They have long lasting effects on their life. And betrayal trauma is one of the things that's that's makes this so much more difficult for these survivors. Betrayal trauma occurs when the people or institutions on which a person depends for survival significantly violate that person's trust and well-being. People emotional and sexual abuse perpetrated by caregiver are examples of betrayal trauma. Not only were they being abused, but nothing was being done about it. There was an absolute lack of response by Kern Hatton or any other agency or person. And that is what makes this even more difficult, because nobody helped them, and they were the most vulnerable. This is the chance you senators have given them a chance. You've given them an opportunity to be heard through me and I thank you very much for that. And we talk about the cycle of abuse. I just want to read this quote never underestimate a cycle breaker. Not only did they experience years of generational trauma, but they stood in face of the trauma and fought to say, This ends with me. This is brave. This is powerful. This comes at significant cost. Never underestimate a cycle breaker. These survivors are cycle breakers. You as senators being involved here are supporting breaking this cycle of abuse at Kern Hatton. And we thank you very much for that. We have lots of ideas to share with you as to how things can be rectified, the types of policy changes that need to take place, and the various ramifications and reform that needs to happen in order for Kern Hatton to proceed under its current mission of safeguarding children. We welcome any questions that you have and welcome the opportunity to provide you further thoughts regarding that reform and what needs to happen in order for Kern Hatton to be that safe place for children in the future. Thank you. Thank you very much, Kim. Yeah, I was just going to say it would be good to take your screen down so we can see one another. So I'll open it up to Senator Sears and Senator Campion first any questions that you might have of Kim. Go ahead, Senator Sears. Kim asked the question and so why didn't DCF or the Vermont State Police do more. That's certainly part of our job to find out why they didn't do more. But I'm curious if you're working in tandem with the Wyndham County State Attorney's Office on any of these allegations which are criminal in nature. Certainly many of them are. And so I'm just curious to know whether that's going on. I have we're we've been working specifically as of late with the New Hampshire detective on the Mark Davis matter. And that has been one of the priorities for the criminal investigation because in the next month, he will receive a plea deal and the more evidence that they have against him in the new charges of possession of child pornography is been critically for us to be able to provide information our clients are reviewing sanitized photographs to see if in fact they are in those photographs or they can identify the other children that are in those photographs to see if they can continue to get more jail time on that plea bargain. We reached out in the past to the Wyndham County folks and haven't heard much about it. I can tell you we all are we also are working with the agency of education and the investigation that they are doing clients of ours have provided testimony and documents to the agency in their investigation. And we're also working with current hat and independent investigators and providing testimony and documents to them as well. criminally we would love to see something more happen. And if, if in fact that does we will continue to cooperate and provide as much information as we can to ensure that the Wyndham County AG's office and the DA's office have everything they need to fully move forward with any investigation. Thank you, but I think we need to talk about next steps, but one of the next steps needs to have the Department of Public Safety, Attorney General's Office and the State Attorney's discussion where As far as DCF goes, I'm, it's not clear to me. And DOE, that's why I asked the question about mandatory reports that those situations or how they were dealt with and it's continued to be it appears from your documents going way back to the 50s. When that it's continued to not be reported that even when cases were known, there wasn't any. That's what you're finding in your research on these cases may have been internal reports at current hat and in current hand, current hat handled them internally but didn't go outside either to the licensing agencies that were must take the case or any other. That's correct and and some of the older time frame we we've gotten testimonials that you know the physical abuse that resulted in broken bones and injuries and things were dealt with internally at their infirmary and never brought to light any other way shape or form. We also know in the 80s we have a client who would literally tie his sheets together with the other boys before Mark Davis would come in their room, and they knew the time when they turned out the light and how much time they had to get out that window and tie those sheets together to get away and they would run away and they would be they would be picked up by state troopers. And usually it was the same state trooper and that trooper would bring them right back to current hat and where they would be beaten for leaving. But why didn't that state trooper, you know, do something more. But yeah, I mean the, our understanding is the, not only do the documents support but our clients testimony support that much of this was known and not reported. I'm not really going to respond that it would be interesting to know that I believe the state police were acting as they would and turn hadn't acted as in lieu of parents so they would be returning the child to the parents was a run away from home or a one away from another type of program state police would be returning them but why there wasn't any investigation that I'm sure kids said something about all those details but I think that explains why they would bring them back. We did reach out to Vermont State Police and certainly going forward that will be something that in particular judiciary will want to do. And also understanding that some of the as we heard from DCF some of the reporting becomes confidential and that becomes a significant issue when we try to understand historically the what's happened with the school itself and as a treatment center so we have We have a lot of work ahead of us. Senator camp in any question. Oh, I just want to thank Ms. Dougherty. For that timeline in history, and no questions at this time. You're very welcome. Thank you very much. It is, it is absolutely difficult and concerning just to you. It is extremely difficult I think for us to hear this abuse for that happened to children. It's very sad. And so, but thank you for bringing it to our attention. Thank you for the opportunity and again thank you for for being there to support the children and figure out how to rectify the situation and ensure it doesn't happen in the future. This is where I think so thank you. Thank you. And, you know, as Senator Sears said in the beginning and I think it's important that we reiterate this we're not a court, we're not a jury. But we are here to evaluate our current process processes our current statutes and to determine how to make improvements through Agency of Education Department of Children and Families, judicial or other procedures within the judiciary, or in these areas. And as we go forward that that's exactly what we will be doing. But we will very definitely ask you to stay available to our committees as we go forward. Absolutely. As we have with our agencies. Absolutely. Thank you so much. And so I think we should move ahead with to Steve Harrison who is here. He is the Executive Director of Kern Hatton and Steve thank you for being here. We, I don't think we have anything from you and written testimony on our webpage. And it but if you do have something. Thank you. I have I do have some prepared remarks that I'll that I'll be starting with. And those will be shared with you all as well after after the fact. I did want to kind of hear the testimony that was coming forward beforehand. Again, good morning. My name is Steve Harrison and I'm the Executive Director at Kern Hatton homes for children. I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you all today. And I do have some prepared testimony or remarks to start off with if that's okay. Please. I will acknowledge that it's difficult to hear the presentation by Miss Doherty, and I'll speak to that in a moment after my prepared remarks, as well as as to any questions that you might have regarding her testimony or that from DCF or AOE to clarify situations. I have the pleasure of serving as the Executive Director at Kern Hatton homes for five and a half years since 2015. And in that time, I've seen our staff teach and care for children as if they were their own. And we take their role in the lives of our children extremely seriously. I'd like you to know that we appreciate the AOE's decision to conduct a full and fair review, particularly Chair Carroll's indications that the State Board recognizes quote that Kern Hattons 125 year history of service to youngsters in need. And that they'll undertake the discussion in a manner that's respectful in fact finding fact based always keeping foremost the best interests of the children, unquote. And forward to continuing to cooperate fully and to addressing any concerns that the Agency of Education has or anyone else. We've been transparent in our cooperation with the AOE and its review. However, I would like to mention that it is our understanding that this is a confidential process. It's an ongoing investigation, as, as Council Simmons had mentioned. So there may be some questions you have today that I may not be able to answer as a result of that. I'm also personally unable to address a lot of questions regarding the allegations that involve the ongoing litigation that Miss Doherty just talked about. I'm still a confidential independent investigation of those claims, which is currently underway, and I'm at a loss as to how and why those were not held under that confidentiality agreement today. Having said that, I would like to tell you a little bit about current Attenhomes. We operate a residential school located on a 280 acre campus in Westminster, Vermont. And we have done this for over 425 years. Her Manhattan has served children ages five to 15, whose families are experiencing a period of need or a period of instability in their lives. We currently provide children a safe, caring, and even a fun environment where they can excel academically, they can grow as individuals, and they can truly experience the joy of childhood. Her Manhattan Homes is a charitable organization with approximately 95% of our school's funding coming from charitable contributions from outside supporters and alumni. We're on a very solid financial footing at the present time, and the Homes family's paid little or nothing to have their children attend here. We operate an approved elementary and middle school academic program with only one state tuition funded student this year. With a remarkably low student to teacher ratio of six to one students are provided with individualized support to meet each child's needs in a complete academic program. But we also include art music and physical education in that program. In addition, we have numerous extracurricular activities including band choir horseback riding arts and crafts and inter scholastic and intramural sports. In addition to the academic buildings the campus includes nine residential cottages, a working farm, therapeutic equestrian center and athletic facilities. Children come to current hat and homes from Vermont, New Hampshire and throughout the Northeast. Currently we have 39 students from Vermont, 18 students I believe from from New Hampshire and about three from New York at the present time. Referrals come to us from a variety of sources, including many from former children and their families whose lives have been positively transformed by their experiences at current hat and homes. I want to provide you some direct factual information regarding enrollment. Prior to 2018 the homes typically served approximately 100 children at a time. Ms. Doherty mentioned 120. I don't know that we've ever been to 120 but certainly in my time here, we've only been up to around 100. In 2018, that number was reduced to approximately 80 children at the suggestion of DCF in order to lower the number of children supervised by the house parents in each cottage. Currently, in response to concerns about the pandemic and after further consideration of the best child to staff ratio, both residentially and academically current hat and homes has further reduced its population to approximately 60 children. Post pandemic we anticipate a census of around 60 to 70 children. That would be about 50 to 60 residential and about 10 day students. Over the past several years our organization has worked very hard to enhance its academic programs. Her Manhattan homes is a recognized PBIS which is a positive behavioral interventions and support school at the tier two level, and has been since 2017. We utilize PBIS as an umbrella program for school culture community and student conduct. The primary focus of PBIS is creating and maintaining a positive school culture and climate. In 2019, we were recognized as a PBIS school of merit for implementation with faithfulness to mission conduct referral declines and an improvement in standardized test scores. Her Manhattan homes was the only independent school in Vermont to achieve the merit school status with Vermont PBIS. In addition to being an approved independent school by Vermont Agency of Education, and the only independent school in Vermont to achieve that merit school status with Vermont PBIS. Her Manhattan homes is close to acquiring accreditation by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges or nears as was mentioned earlier. Having already been favorably rated or rated favorably by a five member visiting team in the fall of 2019 prior to the pandemic. We spent three days on campus talking essentially to every staff member interviewing children and reviewing all of our facilities and procedures. That accreditation process was put on hold last summer, until after the home's legal situation has been resolved per nears regulations. Additionally, her Manhattan had been licensed by DCF as a residential treatment program as you know, as you heard. So we focus on providing housing and education and not treatment. And that has been our situation for the last several years. We had begun the process of winding down our license. Over two years ago. We spoke with the previous RLSI director and Ms Benedict's role prior to her arrival, talking about whether or not we wanted to maintain our license because we really weren't providing treatment to children. It was not the role and the function and what was happening at Kernhatton homes. We were actually providing education and a caring place for children to live, more in terms of a boarding school as opposed to a treatment residential treatment program facility. We had begun the process to winding down our license nearly two years ago and it was our announcement to DCF that they asked for in September of 2019. Of our readiness to end the license that prompted DCF to conduct its final licensing review. They didn't conduct the final licensing review because of abuse allegations but rather because we had notified them that we were planning on relinquishing our license. At the time they supported that transition. And there's documentation in the public record to show this, and even up until the January excuse me the June 25 2020 final letter that they gave us listing out the terms of the actual five elements to relinquish our license. They were still stating to us that they would be willing to work with us and continue to have us as an RTP. Homes has also made substantial improvements to our residential program, including the hiring of a new director of residential services in January of 2020, who brought more than 25 years of experience as a residential professional to the program and who has overseen significant enhancements in all areas of residential life. The changes in the structure of our counseling and health services departments have occurred to ensure that nurses and counselors are now available during the afternoon and evening hours, which has strengthened the support provided for children each day staff to child ratios have been lowered significantly. We have had extensive staff training, including weekly staff meetings with ongoing training opportunities, and our staff has attended our annual conference each October for excellent professional development by top professionals in the field. I do want to close by saying that we have heard from countless former students and families about the incredible positive difference that current hadn't had on their lives. And the pain that Ms. Doherty referred to from her clients. And we want to be sensitive to that we want to be open to that we want to to recognize that we're moving in a direction of trying to to hear what they have to say and rectify any of their concerns. I do encourage any legislator or any agency official at any time to come to Kernhattan and spend as much time as you would like, subject to COVID restrictions of course, but you can come to see our operations. You can come to see our wonderful staff in action. You can come to see the quality care that is being provided for our children. It's an open environment, and I welcome you to come to campus and view for yourself, the good work that we're doing for our children here. I thank you again for the opportunity to speak today, and I'm open to any questions that you might have. Before, before we go to Senator Shears, I've had a request, and I agree from Kim Doherty to respond to one of your comments. Mr. Harrison. So, Kim. Thank you. I just want to assure Mr. Harrison and the senators that that nothing in my presentation was subject to any confidentiality. Per the senator's request of me last Friday, I prepared a timeline of the abuse that is set forth in documents that were provided to us through a public record request through a FOIA request. We have not revealed any confidential information related to any investigations to the senators whatsoever, and we don't intend to do so. We take our responsibilities to confidentiality very seriously, and we'll continue to do so. All right, thank you. I thought I think it was important for senators to hear that clarification. I do want to ask one question, and I'm going to have Senator Sears and Senator Campion ask their questions as well. But, Mr. Harrison, you have now been at the school since 2015, and that you're talking about changes that have started. I believe you said somewhere around 2019 or 2020, even with an ongoing ongoing concerns about abuse at the school. So I guess my question of you is how much of the change that you are have put in place and are working on is a result of the investigation or the sort of the visibility of issues related to the school and sort of the coverage that we've seen in the press and how much of it is related to your internal knowledge about what's needed at the school. Thank you for that question, and I appreciate the opportunity to respond to it. We've been making changes since I came in the door. We recognize that there were that there were needs in our residential program and throughout our program overall we can always improve in what we're doing. We've made changes throughout the time that I've been here, but we did institute a number of changes in 2019 and on into 2020 that reflect our concerns that came to us from DCF. So, the specific concerns that you're talking about that were relayed in the December 2019 report licensing report from DCF prompted us to continue on with some of those changes but they weren't the only initiative or only prompt for for the changes that we were making. Thank you. Senator Sears. Thank you, Mr. Harris. Senator Campion, I'll try to get the dog in the control as part of. Okay. Senator Campion. Thank you. Thank you very much, Senator Alliance. I think my main question has to do with a little. I'd like to know how you train teachers and staff to be mandatory reporters like to know about that training. I'd like to know the process that you go through when someone does report, you know, sites and incident. And then finally, I think I'd be interested in knowing, you know, the whether or not you do exit interviews and what in if those exit interviews when people do decide to leave if those have had anything to do with abuse. The training of teachers and staff about mandatory reporting, what the process is when an incident is, is noted and then a sense of more than a sense but have you received either complaints of abuse since you've become the head of school, either, you know, through a student family member or also during the exit process? I think I can talk fairly freely about the actual process. I do have to say that some of this may come under the confines of the AOE investigation and so I have to be a little bit constrained in terms of the confidentiality there. And contrary to what Miss Doherty did say, we do feel like we're constrained somewhat by the confidentiality agreements that we all signed regarding the independent investigation. So there may be some areas there that I may not be able to go into at all as well. But regarding the questions that you're asking about in terms of our training, we start off the year with a five day training session for all of our staff. Some of it is department by department and some of it is an all staff training and in that period of time, we go through training on mandatory mandated reporting and hazing harassment and bullying kinds of training as well, all kinds of training but it is an extensive training that goes on during the course of our five day initial training. And then throughout the course of the year, we have at least one, if not two or three actual professional development days in which we oftentimes will incorporate aspects of mandatory training as well as other aspects of reporting that goes on through the course of the year. We do have an annual conference that we hold on campus each year in October and all of our staff have been participating in that conference which brings in experts from around the region and around the country actually to speak to folks here in the New England region about specific aspects of their area of training, whether that's trauma induced care or anxiety and children or ADHD or other types of aspects. And while that may not be specific mandated reporter training it does get into the aspects of identifying the aspects of sexual abuse and sexualized activity and children. Regarding your question about process, I think I can speak to that without too much difficulty. The process that we have for reporting is that if anybody on campus whether it's a teacher, a counselor, house parents, cafeteria worker, or a maintenance worker. Here's from a child about any issue, any situation that would cause any suspicion of abuse or sexualized activity. They are required and we tell them this in our trainings, they are required to report to DCF within a 24 hour period to centralized intake about that particular situation. Centralized intake and DCF then makes a determination as to whether or not they feel like it warrants being investigated further. DCF then takes on any of the investigation on those situations and have told us over the time that I've been here at least that if we report to centralized intake we need to allow DCF to take over the investigation and follow up on that and not investigate it ourselves so that we're not muddying the waters or something from their investigation. What's interesting, perhaps in some respects is that Well, I don't think actually I don't think I can go there in terms of the confidentiality agreement but but some of the some of the reports that were shared even by Miss Doherty had come back to us in results letters stating that they were not substantiated allegations from DCF. And so, you know, I'm not saying that nothing happened I can't get into that because I don't know, but I can say that that we haven't always agreed with with what's come out in in the media about those specific investigations, because the media didn't report the results letters from DCF. How the media got the actual investigations and the results of those investigations and the reports themselves through a FOIA grant or request is a mystery to us as well, because as as was cited earlier. Those types of reports and investigation reports are actually confidential information, whether they have redactions or not. So, so, so Mr Harris and I think we understand now the process and you're starting to move into a debate between different parties and so I think, rather than do that we should see if Senator Campion or Senator Sears have follow up. How many reports to have you received if abuse since you were head since you became head of school. I don't have an exact number, because sometimes those reports don't necessarily get reported directly to me or even to the administration. If a staff member goes directly to DCF and makes a report to centralized intake. We may or may not receive a specific response on that particular report to us. I mean, yes, generally. Generally, I would say we probably had six or seven, maybe eight or nine, possibly in some years through the course of a year that have gone on to to centralized intake for for investigation. Okay, clarifying that annually or is that all together since you've been head of school. That probably be about annually, probably six to six to nine annually that we would have some type of report that would be going to centralized intake or review. So roughly 45 since you've been head of school. I would say probably around 35 maybe. Thank you. Not all of which have been investigated or accepted as being warranted for investigation. All right, thank you. Senator Sears. I'm reading a article from the battle for reform of July 5 2020. And it's written by Bob a debt abuse victim seek apology from current happens to headlight. Harrison you're quoted as saying, I'm going to read an article. We plan to fully investigate these claims that even though they allegedly happened 30 to 60 years ago we vowed to do all we can to uncover the truth. And if need be help survivors find the piece to seek and deserve. We take these allegations extremely seriously. And the thought that any of our children came to us for a few years suffered abuse. Well in our care is both horrific and heartbreaking. And that was in response to a suit regarding Mark Davis from a lawyer named foot from Pennsylvania. Could you tell us what you've done since July 5 to hold up to what you said you would do that. Thank you. That was the independent investigation that I alluded to earlier. In terms of the remarks from majority. We did Mr. Davis. This article is you we plan to fully investigate these clean claims even though allegedly happened to 3060 years ago. I'm asking you what you've done since July 5 to cooperate and fully investigate those claims. We have employed a an independent investigator who is going into those specific claims is investigating and talking to each of the claimants themselves is following up on all aspects of the claims that have come our way. And that that independent investigation is ongoing at this point. You apologize to the former residents of current at new were abused by Mark Davis. What we're doing is trying to get the full extent of what the damage was. Finding out the specific aspects of all of those claims. And once we get that final independent investigator report will be working with all of the claimants and all of the individuals who have come forward. And to try to make some type of restitution in terms of apologies as well as see where else it might take us. So we are in the process of trying to do that independent investigation that I talked about in that specific piece that investigation is ongoing. It takes time. It has been difficult in this time of COVID for that to all occur, but it is ongoing at this point. Thank you. I just comment, Madam chair that this is the heart of my difficulty here is Mr Davis was found guilty. A criminal acts while he was at Manhattan. So I don't know that those are confidential. A book document from the courts and everything that went on there. I don't know what needs to be investigated, other than the number of kids who may have been abused. Another court case, another charges going on regarding pornography that may have may or may not have involved these students, but this is difficult and will add to I am still having trouble figuring out this giving up the residential treatment cases. And one side says one thing on the side says another, and one is the state of Vermont the other is current hat and so it would be important in my mind anyway to better understand that as well. But I think that this is certainly open up opens up in my mind. Where this, some of these things about where we need to go in the future. It certainly does center and I couldn't agree with you more. And along the lines of the treatment, residential treatment program that what was originally at Kern hatton or supposed to be at Kern hatton I'm getting to be I'm now very unclear about what was there and what support services were available to kids. You've described the children at your school as needing some stability they come from, they come from instability and with needs. And you said you're providing a school environment academic environment with extracurricular activities but I'm trying to resolve the issue around instability and and needs for these kids. And what kinds of counseling or other services are made available to bring them to a more, if you will, a solid place a stable place in the social environment. I understand where you're coming from I appreciate the question and I can certainly understand your, your confusion perhaps, in terms of what is confused I'm concerned about kids. Okay, as are we ma'am, and I really do appreciate your question. The, the type of children who come to current hat and homes do need stability. They need predictability in their lives, and they need care, and they need concern, as well as an education and a quality program. And those are the things that we provide in spades here. We have staff who are trained to provide the care and the consistency, we have a predictable program for the children so that they understand, you know, what their plan is going to hold through the course of the day. We have counselors who are meeting with children on a regularized basis. Generally, most of our children have have a once a week session with their counselor. Our counseling staff here is is far and away above what what most independent schools or even public schools would have in terms of the numbers of counselors that we have available to our children. We have one or two counselors for 200 or 300 kids sometimes, and we have three counselors for 60 children at this point. So, moving forward with with the types of care that we have for children. It goes right into trying to maintain opportunities for them to have stable sleep times at night and and consistent study times and consistent expectations for their academics as they move forward. Those are programmatic opportunities for kids and opportunities for our staff to interact with children, but they are not treatment. It's not a treatment program and and the children who come here don't require the kind of treatment that they would require if they were going to brought a rural retreat or to a special education school, because that's not what we do. It's not who we are. And so let me ask you, let me ask you this question. Are any do any are any of your do any of your students fall on the autism spectrum. Are there are there students who have special needs that we might consider meeting an IEP. No, we do not have IEP students here. Some of our students are on 504 plans which are structured academic plans, but we do not have IEP students nor do we have any special education students here. Thank you. We'll have to continue this discussion in our committees going forward to fully resolve some of the questions that we have. Thank you very much, Mr Harrison for being available to us as as we have said previously this is the beginning for us to try to understand how to improve our regulations, our statutes and procedures going forward that we're we're at the tip of a very large iceberg we understand that so. Thank you for having me today. I look forward to the opportunity to speak with you more freely after the aoe investigation is completed, and even after the independent investigation is completed so that we can talk much more freely about all of these situations because I think we'd be happy to try and clarify situations for you. All right, thank you very much. We'll continue our concerns. We still have concerns. Just want to share that with everyone at least. I do and I think I represent a thinking of others who are here with us. Senator Campion, Senator Sears, any final questions or comments. I don't have any final questions or comments but I hopefully our committees will not be going over the same round so that we need to coordinate our future actions and that may be need necessary to do sharing and health and welfare to meet jointly in the future. That makes a lot of sense. I think I have nothing else to add either except I appreciate you leading this discussion today. Thank you. All right. Senators health and welfare committee has a tradition of finishing a little bit early. I am willing to do that now unless there is a significant question of clarification that any. Committee has at this point. Senator if I could just make one closing comment if the committee would indulge me. Please go ahead commissioner. I would just like to take a moment and recognize the courage that it took for many of the victims that came identified in her presentation the courage to come forward into and for many to relive the trauma and the pain of their event and retelling of their story and I just want to acknowledge that that it takes tremendous courage and and I just wanted to publicly acknowledge that and recognize that. Thank you commissioner I think that is that that is absolutely true and I think we all appreciate that. The courage that these folks have demonstrated. Thank you all for recognizing that as part of the healing. Thank you. All right. Hearing no further burning questions. I want to thank everyone for being so attentive. And I would like to thank you all who have testified here today for your time and your input. Obviously there are significant concerns and questions about children and how we deal with complaints of abuse and neglect. We will move forward with this and we will move forward in joint hearings and possibly in separate hearings but so thank you. Nellie we can go off YouTube.