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April 7, 2022

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Welcome to Soapboxie!

Welcome to Soapboxie!


MACLAREN HALL CHILDREN'S CENTER: LOS ANGELES' DIRTY LITTLE SECRET

 * Author:
   Julia Walrath
 * Updated date:
   Aug 26, 2021

 * 
 * 
 * 100 Comments



MacLaren Hall opened it's doors more than 40 years ago. The enormous property
was intended to house children removed from their homes and waiting to be placed
in foster care. Over the years, however, the El Monte center served more as a
warehouse for as many as 300 children at a time. Some children remaining at the
facility for a year or longer. The overcrowding led to allegations of improper
care from staff, abusive discipline, over-medication and poor living conditions.
MacLaren Hall housed roughly 4,000 children a year during the 1960s. Over the
next six decades, MacLaren Hall would be home to tens of thousands of children.
The poorly staffed and underfunded facility quickly became overcrowded. Children
removed from their homes due to abuse were housed with the mentally ill,
emotionally disturbed and children facing criminal charges. The lack of
supportive services and inadequate staff, made conditions worse. Children
frequently ran away, and violent outbursts were constant. Violent children and
mentally unstable children dominated MacLaren Hall and this proved to be a very
damaging combination.







There are numerous reports of children being repeatedly abused by staff as well
as the other children at the facility. Reports of both physical and sexual abuse
were ignored. During that time period, Los Angeles County's Emergency Shelters
were no different than most County Emergency Shelters in America. Abuse was
widespread, and most facilities were understaffed or inadequately trained, not
trained to work with youth with mental health issues and special needs.




The facility finally shut it's doors in June of 2003 after a class action
lawsuit was filed by a resident. There were claims that MacLaren Hall staff
injured numerous children, violently restrained children, and staff denied basic
needs such as food and water. The number of sexual abuse claims was staggering.
The county denied the allegations claiming the children were injuring staff.
Many of the juvenile records that described the abuse at MacLaren Hall were said
to have been either destroyed or lost. It is hard to imagine a system with this
much corruption existed for so long in Los Angeles. The County failed these
children, and then refuses to take responsibility. Children who were taken from
their homes, many who had already suffered some form of abuse, were then
re-abused, by the one who was supposed to protect them. Children were taken from
their homes, stripped of their possessions, and forgotten about. Essentially,
these children were robbed of their childhoods and for many never given a
chance.







The abuse these Children suffered ranged from sexual abuse, physical abuse, and
emotional abuse. Children were many times over- medicated, or unnecessarily
medicated. Children were treated like animals and forced to live in filthy and
unsanitary conditions. Thousands of traumatized children were removed from
abusive homes only to be re-traumatized. The fact that this went on from the
1960s up until 2003 is appalling. How could this have happened? Currently in Los
Angeles County, there are 28,000 children in foster care. There is also a huge
shortage of foster homes where children can be safely placed. Children younger
than 12 are generally sent to the Children's Welcome Center on the campus of the
Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center. This facility is equipped with a large
open space, cribs for infants and cots for other children. This facility has the
capacity for as many as 29 children sleeping over on some nights. Since there is
often times not enough staff to feed and diaper the large number of children who
enter the facility, the department recently issued an emergency plea for
community volunteers to help. Older children are harder to place in foster homes
and are typically sent to a conference room in a high-rise building south of
downtown Los Angeles, where they sleep on the floor or cots..





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The foster care system in Los Angeles as well as the rest of the country is
beyond flawed. There needs to be a change. Children cannot keep being abused.
Social workers are overloaded with cases making it impossible to give each
family the time or services they need. With too many cases and not enough social
workers, children are falling through the cracks. Directors from DCFS demand
more thorough investigation from the emergency response social workers who are
then too quick in removing children in fear of losing their jobs. Children that
need to be removed are either forgotten about or sent to a foster home that's
even more abusive than the home.




Many of the lawsuits against MacLaren Hall did not seek financial damages, but
only change. An investigation conducted by the county of Los Angeles that cost
$355,531 revealed that

(1) Children were placed at the Maclaren Hall sometimes more than a year, even
though the county of Los Angeles is required to place children within 30 days,

(2) Delinquent children, and children who were violent and emotionally disturbed
were housed with dependent children.

(3) Staff members restrained children, regardless, of a policy that restricts
restraining children.

(4) There we're as many as 11 reports of Children's arms being broken by staff
members.

(5) Unlawful strip searches of children were performed on a routine basis.






Numerous former residents have requested their records only to be denied. In the
prison like atmosphere, MacLaren Hall housed severely abused children with
extensive behavioral issues, alongside violent juvenile offenders. This reckless
system created much of the chaos and widespread violence. In the mid-1980s,
faculty members came under fire as reports were made of staff selling drugs and
abusing children. This led to a brief period of improvement at the facility.
Then in 1997, a 12-year-old boy died after inhaling fumes from a can of hair
mousse as he was unsupervised by staff.

Maclaren Hall sat on 10 acres. The facility consisted of a campus, school,
infirmary, administrative offices and cottages. Maclaren Hall was overcrowded
and poorly staffed, leading to a constant increase in violent outbursts and
chaos. Housing emotionally disturbed, suicidal, and violent children with
children in general population shows the deliberate lack of concern and
inadequate training of the staff.

There have been numerous reports by former residents of children being examined,
over-medicated, taunted by staff, restrained, and beaten. Reports of rape and
sexual abuse was widespread. Reports of PTSD, depression, anxiety, and suicide
are just a few issues former residents reported suffering from today. As adults,
they are still affected by the trauma they experienced at MacLaren Hall.

Children released from probation facilities without a place to go ended up at
MacLaren Hall, where they were housed with children coming in from psychiatric
hospitals, and those who were suicidal and developmentally delayed. There are
reports of staff dragging small children and infants around by their hair, legs,
arms, or ears. Babies and small children could be heard screaming and crying
throughout the night. MacLaren Hall had become a dumping ground for the most
undeserving. Many of the children would AWOL from the facility, only to be found
and brought back. The majority of the children were classified as “hard to
place”, or “unadoptable”.

Many survivors of MacLaren Hall share similar stories. A man who had been at
MacLaren Hall in the 1960’s, has spent close to his whole life incarcerated.
Another MacLaren Hall survivor wrote about their partner who had also been at
MacLaren Hall. Her partner committed suicide in 2003. The woman shared that her
partner spoke about MacLaren Hall often and had a lot of emotional issues and
unresolved trauma which inevitably resulted in her suicide. After close to 6
decades of abuse and devastation, MacLaren Hall closed its massive sky-high
prison-like doors in 2003. The threatening, demoralizing building remains.
Uninhabited. Hauntingly empty. However the memories are still there. For every
child who was forced to walk those halls, the painful memories will always be
there. Trauma and abuse cannot be reversed. These children have scars, both
physical and emotional. There are no words to make any of it go away. Something
needs to be done to fix the Foster Care system. We cannot remove children who
are being abused just to abuse them all over again. There needs to be less
institutions, and more homes to place these broken children. They need more
services and protection. There needs to be change and reform. If nothing changes
the cycle will only repeat itself.






A KID'S WORST NIGHTMARE? EXPERTS: PUT MACLAREN CHILDREN'S CENTER
OUT OF BUSINESS.. (n.d.) >The Free Library. (2014). Retrieved Aug 13 2015
fromhttp://www.thefreelibrary.com/A+KID%27S+WORST+NIGHTMARE%3f+EXPERTS%3a
+PUT+MACLAREN+CHILDREN%27S+CENTER+OUT...-a079092214
Anderberg, K. (2007, July 26). The Internet Connects Trauma Survivors. Retrieved
from
http://www.energy-net.org/NUZ/COMPUTER/0772579.TXT
Rivera, C. (2003, March 15). Lawsuit Is Foster Center's Legacy. Retrieved from
http://articles.latimes.com/2003/mar/15/local/me-jazzmon15/2

Drury-Hudson, J. (1999). Decision making in Child Protection: The Use of
Theoretical,
Empirical and
Procedural Knowledge by Novices and Experts and Implications for Fieldwork
Placement. British Journal of Social Work, 29(1), 147-169.
Swift, K., & Callahan, M. (2009). At Risk: Social Justice in Child Welfare and
Other Human
Services. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Shlonsky, A., & Gambrill, E. D. (2001). Child and Adolescent Safety: Risk
Assessment in Child
Welfare. In Child Welfare for the Twenty-First Century (pp. 302-318). Columbia


By
Julia Walrath






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