Of the several Kylie staff I recently met at an Annual ISP Meeting for a disabled adult resident, the most difficult person to dislike was Dr. Wade Frasier, Unit Psychologist. He seemed professional and smart (or at least clever in the circumstances). He didn't interrupt or talk over anyone, as best I recall. He looked me in the eye several times. These are unusually positive personality and behavioral features for a snake pit employee. I found myself reflexively wondering why this gentleman had lowered himself to work in a snake pit.
There was no mistake, however, in assuming that Kylie Developmental Center, the state-operated facility under the purview of the Illinois Department of Human Services (IDHS) located on West Dugdale Road in Waukegan, IL, is absolutely a snake pit, as defined by Google: "noun... a place of overcrowded squalor, especially a poorly run mental hospital."
Admittedly, I had made my own prejudiced presumption that Kylie was a snake pit before I ever went there, based on a conversation I'd had with my friend Alan, who happens to be a long-time director of a private not-for-profit which gets very good results helping the same population that state facilities seem so hopelessly unable to help. When I mentioned that I had a client whose child was at Kylie, Alan actually grimaced and said, "Ooh. That place is a terrible snake pit!"
Other than Dr. Frasier, just about everyone else in that big annual meeting was predictably dull, disgruntled, even clearly incompetent. Kinga Mucha, who valiantly attempts to be a very pleasant woman, almost immediately called my client's daughter by the wrong name, while gratuitously asserting the predictable platitude, "Of course, we are all on the same side...." (Nice example for the caseworker in charge, right?) An evil Dr. John Cosgrove reported that the patient had been "...prone to falls since childhood, per records." (I asked him what records, and he did his awkward best to cover up the fact that he had no idea, he'd totally fabricated or imagined those "records" himself.)
Tyson the dietician reported the patient's normal fare and current weight. But he had no record of her weight over the previous six months, and (incidentally) no awareness that he could have just asked my client, the mother, who weighs her daughter whenever she visits at Kylie, about twice a week.
There was a skinny "Home Manager" whose name I don't recall, who tried hard to explain or excuse obvious staff neglect of their patient with inappropriate or irrelevant claims about "the needs of the facility" and my client's daughter's "maladaptive behaviors." These are favorite phrases, repeated incessantly, which nobody ever thinks need to be defined and which are perhaps intended to sound like authoritative medical/scientific/administrative lingo, but which I think are pure, unadulterated bullshit. They merely identify the speaker as a robotic cog in the machine with no ability to think at all. The only legitimate "needs" the facility has are better staff who will actually treat the people entrusted to its care and teach or enable adaptive behavior.
In addition to Dr. Frasier, I was impressed by an African-American woman who had really nice corn rows. She sat directly across the table from my client,and made a very practical suggestion or two. She offered to meet and confer whenever I wanted if I thought she could help with anything. She also warned me sternly, the way my wife probably would in similar circumstances: "Don't be mean, be nice!" The evil Dr. Cosgrove by contrast, merely snarled on his way out the door as the meeting ended: "Grrrr! That was a complete waste of time."
But Kylie is indeed an unrepentant snake pit. The buildings are in desperate need of paint and repairs. Many staff are in desperate need of getting fired, sued, or prosecuted. Their motto appears to be, "Never fail to get retribution against any parent who attempts to advocate for their child!"
I don't know why Wade Frasier demeans himself to work there.
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