The consent order required the hospital to remove hazards children could use to hurt themselves. By late August, the monitors wrote progress was "slow" & the environment "remains largely unchanged." An August critical incident report: staff gave Narcan to a child who overdosed inside the hospital.

Patient care areas — in the monitor's words — "general disrepair." Broken lights, doors, windows. Metal shavings loose in seclusion rooms with children inside. Bedroom doors that open inward, so a child can wedge herself in where no one can reach her.

Why a monitor at all? Last Christmas, a girl took a key from the pocket of the social worker walking her to a seclusion room. Staff saw her holding it. Nothing in the record shows anyone tried to get it back. Five days later, another hospital removed it from her body.

More than 200 pages came back: a state inspection report, a consent order, critical incident reports, and the biweekly reports of an independent monitor the state regulators placed inside the building 40 hours a week. Each monitor report is stamped confidential. Not for distribution.

Connecticut has one psychiatric hospital for the children private providers won't take and other hospitals can't safely handle. It's licensed for 50 beds. This summer, hospital leaders capped it at 24 — while children waited to get in. We asked for the records. 🧵

More than two dozen unaccompanied immigrant children were in federal custody in Connecticut on a typical day this spring — alone and isolated from family.