Attack of Iowa Juvenile Home is unnecessary

Forty-nine years ago I came to Toledo when my parents went to work as cottage parents at the Iowa Juvenile Home. In fact, a cottage is named after my parents. For 25 years, I served as president and later as treasurer for the Iowa Juvenile Home Foundation, a non-profit organization created solely to provide services and programs for students and staff who couldn't be provided through the state budgeting process.

Now, the Iowa Juvenile Home is under attack by various media who are brutally accusatory about isolation policy decisions that ultimately resulted in the retirement of Superintendent Deb Hanus, one of the most dedicated, professional and compassionate administrators I have ever known.

It is easy to be critical when you don't apply the perspective that the Iowa Juvenile Home is the treatment alternative of last resort. The home has no choice but to accept children who have failed in numerous community-based placements. The home's staff cannot advocate for themselves, so I am doing it for them and hope you will consider this perspective.

Bill Skow

Toledo