Clay County Commission

Dan Haglund

The director of the West Central Regional Juvenile Center in north Moorhead gave a numbers-heavy annual report to the Clay County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday morning in Moorhead, in spite of blizzard-like conditions outside.
James O’Donnell also extolled the improved full-time employee turnover rate in the center, from 25 in 2021 to just 10 last year.
O’Donnell began his assessment for the board with explaining exactly what the center provides, and then let them see the numbers.
First, he said, there are secure and non-secure options at the center. The secure services are provided for those who have committed a delinquency offense that would have placed them in jail as adults. The non-secure program is geared toward both delinquent and non-delinquent youths.
The center partners with several area organizations with referrals and transfers, including the Moorhead Public Schools, Lutheran Social Services, Lakeland Mental Health Center, Solutions, Psychlogics, Oasis and significant volunteers at Concordia College and Red River Youth for Christ.
The center has 26 full-time staff (and 50 part-time staff) in the secure portion, and 15 (and 20 part-time staff) in the non-secure area, and saw a turnover of just 10 employees in 2023, a much better number than the previous two years during the pandemic.
The two primary units include many special focuses, including: K-12 education, Cognitive Behavioral Approach, group and individual counseling, religious services, chemical dependency, trauma therapy, evaluations (primary in the non-secure area), sex offender treatment, medication management, transitional services and mindfulness.
The non-secure unit averages about 17 youths, with about 40 to 50 percent of them from out of county. The center is paid by outside counties on a per diem basis for these patients. The unit is targeting those transitioning out of the secure unit and awaiting a new community placement, emergency Social Services or law enforcement holds, and evaluations in partnership with Lakeland.
“What’s happened in the last couple of years everything’s dropped out, treatment-wise across the state,” O’Donnell said. “Clay County does an excellent job at taking care of Clay County residents.”
He said other counties often call in to see if the center has room, and that emergency holds can be stressful for law enforcement and other entities if there’s not room in a treatment center.

There is also a Community Living Independent Programming and Skills (CLIPS) program which started in 2020 for about seven to eight male youths. These individuals are generally transitioning from Secure Residential housing and with guidance given in areas of education, employment, employability skills and personal finance. There is always a waiting list for this program for non-Clay counties.
The Secure program’s detention portion averages about 24 individuals (for pre-adjudicated youths with pending legal charges), and the residential portion for court-ordered programming which generally last between three and six months. This is a popular program, as there aren’t too many like it statewide.
The 11 member counties which refer individuals to the WCRJC include: Becker, Cass (N.D.), Clay, Douglas, Grant, Otter Tail, Stevens, Todd, Traverse, Wadena and Wilkin. There are also 35 non-member counties participating between North Dakota and Minnesota as well, which makes up about 40 percent of the patient count.
O’Donnell stressed that the center serves all young people, no matter what social status or home environment they live in.
“There’s always a stigma about the youth that end up in our facility,” O’Donnell said. “It shouldn’t be that way. It isn’t a certain type of people, it’s everyone. It’s critical that that’s understood. But it is less than 1 percent of the youth population, too.”
O’Donnell said about 90 percent of the youths are on mental health medications as well.
Clay County administrator Stephen Larson inquired about the center’s maximum capacity, and O’Donnell said there is enough space for the needs right now.
“We are licensed for 55 (beds) and then we have 10 more that aren’t licensed,” O’Donnell said. “So we have space. I think that was the intent for this board, the advisory board for that to last us for 20 years.”
Commissioner Frank Gross, Dist. 2, asked if the center ever had to turn down a member for a placement request, and O’Donnell said no, net yet.