Arriving back at the Delaware County Children's Home I discovered construction going on

Some how I had missed that the city had decided the old DCCH was too old and needed to be replaced. This had been decided before my first placement in the DCCH and construction was starting. Things were as I remembered them the first time and for about 2 months things were pretty good. I got to go home on the weekends to spend that time with my family. I spent many of those weekends with @charisma777. I felt safe and secure again and didn't feel like I was in danger.

photo credit http://www.yocinc.org/about/history/

The Youth Opportunity Center aka YOC is replacing the DCCH

So a new facility was replacing the DCCH. The plan was to create 8 cottages each with 5 bedrooms and an Office with an isolation room located in the office where the bathroom would be in the bedroom. Each bedroom would house 2-3 children for a maximum of 15 children per building. In 1992 the first two buildings were complete. I am a curious person by nature. And during construction I asked the workers questions when I was outside. One of the things I learned about is how the alarm system worked. Good for me, bad for the facility, cause this is how I got my nickname hot feet which I will get into later in the story, though I promise I had no intentions of using that knowledge the way I did when I was learning it. I just like to know things, some say I am a know it all, though I am not, I just know how to find answers I don't have the answers too.

The first two cottages open

A girl's cottage and a boy's cottage. Somehow I got lucky enough to be the first girl assigned to the girl's cottage. Things were going to change, I didn't now it yet but would learn fast that this was not going to be a good thing for us children. When moving from a dorm style room where 30 kids are in the same room, it is hard for abuse to happen with that many witnesses. It is a lot easier when you can send everyone to their rooms and lock them in for abuse to happen. And though I am sure the YOC won't like that I am saying this. When they first opened they had a vetting problem and abuse and neglect happened regularly.

photo credit http://www.yocinc.org/about/history/

After being hit by a staff member I decided to run away

I wait till it was time to do chores. I had windows in the foyer. The outer doors had alarms on them so when they let me out to clean the windows on the outside. As I was walking back in I reached up and pulled the magnet out of the top of the door. See what I learned why they were building the first two cottages was how the alarmed worked off a magnet, if the magnet wasn't in the alarm wouldn't go off. So I would disable the alarm when cleaning the windows. And then a little later when staff had their back turned. I would walk out the door, replacing the magnet as I went, so they wouldn't know how I disabled the alarm and then re-enabled it. Two other girls ran away with me that day, one went her own way, and the other girl hung out with me for a few days before we split up. Surprisingly I taught many how to disable the alarm and no one ever told them how it was being disabled. ( 2 years later I was given the chance to be emancipation at the age of 16 if I told them how I was doing it, so they could create a fix, I sold out for my freedom, sorry kiddos)

I would come and go

When I didn't have a place to sleep at night or needed more of my things I would turn myself in. Stay for a few days and take off when I felt like it. I was even sent back home a few times over the next year. But I couldn't stay long at my parents house. I was too scared my being there was putting their lives in danger. As the man who harmed me would make threats anytime he saw me as would my former best friend and her family. They hadn't at this point realize the man he was yet, and took his side instead of mine. I ran away from the YOC 86 times over a year, then I disappeared for 6 months. The last time the judge who created the campus decided I was making his project look bad, and sent me off to Indiana Girl School.

I am going to end this part of the story here

I need to go back and tell part of the rest of the YOC story but it is too overwhelming and painful at the moment to reach into that part of the story. The part that had me gone for the longest time that I had been gone as a runaway to date. It is one of the hardest part of my story.

If you click the link beneath the photos you can read about the time line of the history of the YOC they are still in operations. The abusive staff that worked there when I was there was eventually fired some prosecuted