Monday ushered in what LA County government officials hope will be a new era in juvenile justice — Malibu’s newly rebuilt Campus Kilpatrick (formerly called Camp Kilpatrick) opened for its first residents on July 5.
“Let’s stay the course, let’s treat each other with dignity and let’s celebrate what I believe will be a national model for these kind of facilities where kids can’t live in a community setting,” Chief Probation Officer Terri McDonald said while addressing the crowd gathered for the facility’s ribbon cutting on Friday, June 30.
Also attending the ribbon cutting were LA County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl and former Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, who was still in office when Camp Kilpatrick was torn down in 2014.
The model for the campus, made up of “cottages” housing 24 kids — rather than the old, military-style barracks housing up to 80 kids together — has been a talking point in juvenile justice and is now being referred to as the “LA Model.”
“Campus Kilpatrick’s re-opening not only celebrates the physical transformation of the former juvenile residential treatment detention facility, but also introduces a new research-based model for that utilizes therapeutic and holistic approaches to juvenile rehabilitation,” press material for the event stated.
Dr. Jonathan Sherin, director of the LA County Department of Mental Health, spoke at the ribbon cutting and in a later interview elaborated on the “trauma informed child centered approach” in action at the newly reopened facility.
Sherin said the “vast majority” of children placed in facilities like Campus Kilpatrick have suffered trauma in their lives.
“The vast majority of kids that are on the pathway to the criminal justice program have suffered trauma, whether it be classic trauma or societal trauma,” Sherin said. He elaborated that recognizing the way those experiences affect children’s behavior is the first step toward taking them off the path to prison.
“There really is a whole movement in health and human services — to make sure when you’re dealing with someone who’s suffered a great deal of trauma, you’re aware that trauma is a barrier and your approach … should take into account that person has been traumatized,” Sherin explained. “Psychological trauma is devastating to the brain, similarly to how physical trauma is devastating to the muscles or bone. People who are suffering develop ways to interact that get fixed in a nonproductive way – in order for them to move on, they must be open to see the world in a new way.”
McDonald said in recent years there have been profound changes in the way governments think about juvenile justice.
“There was a period in juvenile justice where they used the term ‘super-predator,’” McDonald described, saying previous reform models were designed like prisons or boot camps.
“This [LA Model] really recognizes there’s a deeper, more profound need. Staff feel as though they’re in a teaching environment, a treatment environment.”
Probation Camp Director Katheryn Beigh said while offering a tour of one of the cottages that they are designed to offer “a little more dignity” to the kids housed there than the former camp provided, offering changes as small as swinging doors in the bathroom area and the opportunity to wear their own clothes.
Other aspects of the “LA Model” include an improved staff-to-youth ratio (the camp is designed to hold up to 120 kids and employs 200 staff members, Beigh said) and programs intended to help teach vocational skills as well as traditional education to youth housed there.
