Baptist Children’s Home runaway killed on San Antonio highway

Posted: 1/08/08

Baptist Children’s Home runaway
killed on San Antonio highway

By Craig Bird

Baptist Child & Family Services

SAN ANTONIO—A 15-year-old resident of San Antonio Baptist Children’s Home was killed by a car Jan. 4 as she ran across U.S. Hwy 90.

She was attempting to cross the highway, which borders the campus, with four other youth. None of the others were injured.

Baptist Children’s Home is an entity of Baptist Child & Family Services, an agency of the Baptist General Convention of Texas.

“The kids we deal with are not in prison, so there are no bars or fences,” said Asennett Segura, executive director of the facility.

“They have not done anything wrong except be born into a bad situation. Being a teenager is a tough job and striving to overcome a deeply troubled past makes it even more difficult. This young girl’s life was tragic from beginning to end. While I cannot speak to the specifics in her case, I can say that the children referred to us by authorities often have experienced physical and/or sexual abuse and neglect.”

Teenagers need space and privacy, and that carries the attendant risk that they can act out just like teenagers in traditional homes, she added.

All the staff members at the children’s home were saddened by the teen’s death, Segura said.

“In the five months since she came to us she touched the hearts of almost everyone who knew her,” she said.

“Over the past 63 years of service, this residential care facility has helped more than 10,000 children overcome significant challenges in their lives—and this is our first experience with this type of heartbreak. That does not provide us any comfort, however. This teen lost her life. We are devastated.”

Every indication is that staff followed proper protocol and procedures at all times as required by state licensing standards, she noted.

“It is illegal for counselors to restrain residents older than 15 with any kind of fence or locked door, and we are not allowed to physically restrain children older than 15 unless they pose an immediate danger to themselves or others,” Segura said.

“Residential Child Care Licensing (the State authority regulating residential programs) does not consider that a threat to run or the act of running are actions that meet the criteria for the use of restraints.”

Although the teen knew she was not permitted to leave the facility unsupervised, she went outside the house and refused to come back inside despite repeated attempts by staff to convince her to do so—an approach that had always been successful with her in the past, Segura said. Even when she left the yard, there was no indication she was going to leave the campus.

She met the four other teens from another part of the campus who apparently had decided they wanted to leave the facility for the evening and accepted their invitation to join them. When it became apparent they were trying to leave the premises, staff did all they could to stop them, and the San Antonio Police Department was immediately notified of the runaways, Segura said.

“We also promptly alerted Child Protective Services and have been cooperating with the state licensing representatives to ensure nothing within the scope of the regulations could have been done to prevent the teens from running,” she added.

“We will continue to do so, and hope that together we can review the standards for dealing with situations such as this not only to protect our children, but to create a best practice that will protect staff and children at other shelters around the state.”