Streamwood Behavioral Health Center

Not good

My son was admitted there 3 yrs. ago & it doesn’t look like things have changed one bit. Worst place ever! I heard his case worker quit or either was fired. She lied so much on all his papers that most of it was not true. Anyway, they forgot to give my son his meds 3 times & they were late with it the other times. They called me one day to tell me that he was ready to be picked up, in which they should have called me a day in advance so I could make arrangements in getting there since it was about a 5 hr. drive. I had a bad urinary tract infection that day & couldn’t hardly walk because I was in so much pain, but they didn’t seem like they cared about that, they wanted him to be picked up right away, so I had to call my 77 yr. old mother to see if she could drive me there & then when we arrived to pick him up nobody knew what floor he was on, when we did find the floor where he was at, everyone at the counter was so unorganized & didn’t seem like they knew what was going on. We had to wait about 20 minutes for them to help him get his stuff all packed & he told us that he couldn’t find half of his clothes, well come to find out some of them was misplaced by the staff workers or stolen & they never did find them. He told us in the car going home that there was hardly any supervision there & some of the staff workers said they hated the kids, their job & cussed at the kids & some of the workers had the kids in restraints that shouldn’t have been in them. I found out a week later that this place had been under investigation & have had a few lawsuits against them for abusing & neglecting some of these kids there. We found out right after he got home that he did not get the proper help at Streamwood because 2 days later he became very depressed & abusive again & ended up going to another facility where he did get the help he needed. I would never ever send him there again or recommend it to anyone else, not even my worst enemy!!!

This was hell within walls. My son was depressed. The hospital we brought him to (which we are familiar) had no beds available. After 24 hours we were forced to make a decision (and there was not much to pick from). We took Streamwood because they separated depressed boys from the aggressive boys. But when we got there, no beds were available in that section so they had to put him in the aggressive section which they told me they would move him in the morning. He was not moved until late afternoon. By that time he had food thrown at him, been spit on, watched boys urinate on the walls for the fun of it, seen several boys put in restraints. The following day we tried to get him removed but the process could not begin until Tuesday (which would begin a 5 day wait they wad procedure in which they could accept or deny-​if denied it becomes a case for the court). The only way our was to find another bed in another facility. We called where we wanted him and no availability. We told our son to give us another day. At first, I felt a little better because he was in a «calmer» section. We were blessed and able to get him transferred where we wanted that day. However, while he was waiting to get transported they were out of room and had to put a boy in who had raped. In the short time he was beginning to throw around furniture toward the in windows trying to escape, so the other boys had to be put on «lock down» just like a jail. How any child could getter better in a place like this, I have no idea. We were there for several hours on the weekend trying to get him out and there was not one structured activity for these boys. I found it hard to believe that a place like this one was even legal. It was a complete nightmare. As a parent I couldn’t sleep at night. I cannot even begin to imagine how my son felt. This was the age group from 12 to 17 years old. DO NOT ALLOW YOUR SON TO GO HERE. It is hell on earth.