New report is latest to highlight mistreatment at Laval residence for people with mental disabilities

A group of consultants hasfound a pattern of mistreatment and abuse at a Laval, Que., residence for people with mental disabilities.

Staff at the Rsidence Louise-Vachon injured residents during interventions, screamed at them and failed to properly communicate with their families, the consultants wrote in their report released this month.

"Certainly, there are reprehensible acts that need to be addressed immediately, but abuse/neglect is also due to a lack of tools, training, monitoring, followup and supervision," the report said.

In 2019, three staff members were charged with assaulting residents. They were later acquitted, but after an internal investigation, the local health authority, the CISSS de Laval,fired nine employees and sought to improve the conditions at the the residence.

But those improvements were short-lived.

The consultants, hired last spring by the health authority to take another look at the management of Rsidence Louise-Vachon, concluded that a lack of followups and monitoring had led to lapses and a "slippery slope" back to the way things were.

They issued a list of 154 recommendations, most of which were targeted towardadministrators, to improve the situation at the residence.

The recommendations include a call for changes at the top.

"Most of them are young, inexperienced managers who have learned on the job and, unfortunately, not necessarily the right management techniques," the report reads. "Some have the potential to learn, others not."

The consultants highlighted the need for greater communication among staff, increased training, particularly around interventions for residents with serious behavioural problems.

The recommendations also call for greater followup after employee misconduct, including the possibility of administrative leave for some problem employees, and the reconsideration of surveillance cameras placed in common areas and even residents' rooms, if their families agree to it.

Yann Desbiens, the assistant director in charge of the mental disabilities and autism spectrum disorders file for the Laval CISSS, said steps were being taken to improve conditions at the residence.

Two new managers havebeen hired, he said, and weekly meetings are being organized with families to keep them updated on how things were progressing.

"There are dedicated people working at the Rsidence Louise-Vachon," he said, "who we need to trained better, and to do that, we're going to put people in place very quickly to support them during their shifts."

Nathalie Bourque, the interim president of the union that represents the workers at the Laval health authority, said that even before the report was issued her union had requested more training for staff at the residenceand more managerial oversight.

Patrick Martin-Mnard, a lawyer who has filed a request for a class-action lawsuit on behalf of residents and their families said his clients have been fighting for years to have adequately trained personnel working at the residence.

"It's shocking, it's discouraging, it's unfortunately not surprising," he said of the latest report. "There have been countless reports of issues with this [residence] in the past few years."