Q&A with Bernalillo County juvenile detention facility deputy directors
Apr. 14—Bernalillo County's Youth Services Center is the largest juvenile detention center in the state. Along with detaining youth from Bernalillo County, the detention center accepts children from other counties and pueblos in the state.
The Journal sat down with Deputy Director of Operations Stanley Gray and Deputy Director of Administration Carmela Romero to discuss trends and programming at the detention facility.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Q: What's the biggest challenge of running a facility like this?
Gray: I think our biggest challenge as of late has been staffing, but it's definitely improved tremendously.
You want to be able to help kids. ... Sometimes they're not ready for that yet. But understand that whatever message you're now delivering to them, you're planting that seed.
Romero: Because I provide oversight to behavioral health and the medical portion of it, it really is getting kids that care that they may not have had. ... For us, I think a lot of our kids have been lacking access to the medical mental health care that they need.
Q: Can you tell me how the medically assisted treatment for kids dealing with opioid addiction works?
Romero: As the youth come into the detention facility during booking, they meet with the medical department. They conduct screening and assessments. ... The (University of New Mexico) Adobe program and our medical staff will come in and work with the youth on their medication, assuring that they're assisting them during that time if they're coming off of drugs and making sure that their care in their everyday is being met... We will take the kids to receive the suboxone at the UNM Adobe clinic.
Adobe has what they call navigators, case management, so if they know a youth is going to go back into the community, we'll coordinate care. ... But also, they assist with the navigation on getting back in school, looking at other case management needs, or even treating the family as a whole.
Q: Is there anything that you want the public to understand about what kind of school kids who are held here have access to?
Romero: A lot of our kids are in credit recovery. Many youth were not consistently attending school. And if they were, they come in here, and they're able to just kind of move forward with their education. ... But the credit recovery portion, the ability to actually come in, receive credits, get one-on-one instruction, is phenomenal. A lot of other facilities across the state, they do credit recovery on the computer. ...
When they leave the facility, if they go back into the community, into APS schools, the families are able to get the transcripts and transfer those credits to other schools.
Q: You're a short-term facility, but you're seeing more and more kids dealing with longer case processes. Can you tell me about what's happening there?
Gray: We have an influx of individuals that are currently alleged to have committed some adult charges that are now staying for longer periods of time. We were built to be a short-term, where a lot of those kids were only supposed to be here an average length of stay back in 2019, at around 14 days.
Now, for that to be 60 (days), it's one of those things for us to now try to figure out what are some different programming we can do pertaining to those particular youth.
Q: Do you have staff vacancies that you're trying to fill?
Gray: We do currently have vacancies. We've improved tremendously over the past three months. We've had two classes already that have been graduated. ... And we have another class that just started yesterday. ... Within a four-month period, for us to now potentially have 50 more individuals, and they're all motivated. ... So we do currently have vacancies and we are actively hiring.
Romero: We've added a six-week academy for new hires. We went from four to six weeks, which is a tremendous help, and in addition to that, we've instituted a formal graduation. ... It's really changed dynamics and folks who already had the heart of coming here, but then even more so, they have this pride about the work that they're doing.
Q: There was the incident in the facility in December (On Christmas Day, there was a five-hour disturbance at the juvenile detention facility, when some of the youth refused to return to their cells).
Has the facility changed anything that it's doing since that incident?
Gray: We really had to look internally and try to find out for ourselves, what can we do to improve? ... So yes, we have made changes. Obviously, laundry has been a kind of a big thing. .... Little things like ... toothpaste. Yes, this toothpaste wasn't bad. Is there any issue with it? No. But there's something little that we can implement to assist the kids while they're here.
Romero: We've been working on a correctional plan. In addition to that, Stanley and I have met with many of the youth. We'll go from unit to unit. What do you guys need? ... The voice and choice of young people and having them being part of that process really lends to them feeling like they're being heard.
