The train wreck that is the Whisper Ridge Behavioral Health System (née The Brown Schools, née The Millmont Center — they change their name regularly in hopes that their misdeeds won’t be associated with them) has just come off the tracks — five recently-sacked employees have been indicted for the sexual abuse of the children in their care there, Rob Seal reports in the Progress. These aren’t just any employees — the two who have been named are Director of Operations Bianca Nicole Johnson and Mental Health Specialist Bryan Antwann Vaughan. Johnson is charged with taking indecent liberties with a child, while Vaughan is charged with forcible sodomy and taking indecent liberties with a child two counts of sexually abusing a child while in a custodial or supervisory role. The unnamed accused, two women and one man, face similar charges.
Police have had an investigator working on this case full-time for six months now. In the meantime the number of residents there has dropped from sixty to just six. I’ve got to wonder what the parents of those six are thinking.
2:36pm update: Turns out the charges against Vaughan reported by the Progress were wrong, though the penalties for the real charges are identical.
The kids who are left there are most likely wards of the state who do not have parents to watch out for them. Most of Whisper Ridge/Millmont/Brown’s residents were referred there by either social services or the juvenile justice system, at least that’s how it was a year ago and I don’t think it has changed. Their center in Leesburg Virginia is in trouble for violations also. The name to remember is Psychiatric Solutions which owns both places in Virginia and lots of other inpatient psychiatric beds across the country. As far as I know they haven’t filed for a name change, yet….
Whisper Ridge should just merge with Lethal Wrecker and be done with it.
[…] I know from their statements to the press that the members of Little High Street Neighborhood Association are very concerned about the well being of people with psychiatric disabilities. So I would like to propose that LHANA members join with people with psychiatric disabilities to march on/rally outside Whisper Ridge (http://www.cvillenews.com/2006/08/31/whisper-ridge-indictment/ ) to protest the continued operation of this facility which can not seem to protect its residents from its own employees. A few of us from the organizing committee of MindFreedom Virginia plus whoever of our friends we can get would join you on a date of your choosing, especially if you choose a non-dialysis day . We could talk about our mutual concerns about the health and safety of people young and old caught in our local and state mental health system, private and public. […]