Care agency workers charged with assault

Care agency workers charged with assault

Raymond Lemay, executive director at the Prescott-Russell Services to Children and Adults (PRSCA), which runs the home, said he is shocked by the situation that is alleged to have happened.

"It was a terrible situation," he said, crediting employees with having brought forward information that shed light on the alleged assaults.

The victims, two women aged 19 and 36 and a 63-year-old man, were the only residents living in the home between April 2008 and April 2009. They required 24-hour care.

Ontario Provincial Police said last week they had charged the two employees based on allegations they mentally, physically and verbally assaulted the people in their care over that year period.

Dominic Laviolette, 35, and Patrick Labreche, 24, who worked together as community integration counsellors, helping residents with day-to-day activities, were suspended while an investigation was conducted by the PRSCA. The two men were then fired and police were called.

Laviolette was charged with assault and sexual exploitation, while Labreche was charged with assault, sexual exploitation and mischief under $5,000.

While Lemay said the Rockland home is one "where there were some difficulties in the past", he said the alleged assaults were "an isolated incident".

"This is definitely not going on in our other homes," Lemay said. "We are reviewing and setting up systems that allow us to be confident of that in the future, too."

He said the social service has moved to assess the home in which the assaults were alleged to have happened in a major internal review. Staff hoped to send a letter to family members of the agency's group-home residents on Friday and appeared to planning several meetings with community members over the coming weeks.

"We've spoken with the families [of the residents]," Lemay said. "They were shocked and concerned. People have a right to be concerned. It's up to us to reassure people we can step up and deliver a great service."

"We're there to provide services to vulnerable individuals," Lemay added. "One of our first duties is to protect people and provide them with as good of a life as possible."

The PRSCA operates 12 homes and three day centres. The Rockland home has about 12 employees. Lemay said managers were moved into homes about a year ago to provide more oversight and supervision. He said the social services agency also has an assessment program where homes are evaluated on an annual basis, but Rockland, where the alleged assaults occurred, had not been evaluated.

However, he said he wasn't sure if an evaluation would have detected the uncharacteristic behaviour "because you could have disguised what might have been going on there".

"We're reinforcing with our staff the importance of telling us if they see things like this happening," Lemay said.