A Brush Prairie youth treatment center has filed suit against the Washington State Department of Health, which suspended the facility’s license due to not cooperating with state investigations.
On May 26, the state health department announced Daybreak Youth Services had its license to operate suspended effective May 31. Alongside the Brush Prairie location, Daybreak also operates a facility in Spokane. That facility’s license to operate was also suspended.
The suspension comes after Daybreak “repeatedly failed to cooperate with (health department) investigations into ongoing patient safety concerns, failed to make mandatory reports, and failed to respond appropriately to allegations of staff misconduct, all of which are required by law,” a news release stated.
Misconduct allegations
The health department has attempted investigations into the experiences of three patients at Daybreak and staff. A notice of intent to suspend the facility’s operations detailed the incidents, which date back as far as 2021.
In the first incident, Kathryn Reinmuth, a “skills coach” at Daybreak, had “frequent contact” with a patient during the patient’s time at the facility in 2021, the notice stated. In March 2022, the patient contacted Daybreak to report they had been communicating with Reinmuth since the patient was discharged.
The prior month, the patient and Reinmuth had sexual contact at an Airbnb, according to the notice. Reinmuth initially denied having contact with the patient, though she eventually admitted it to Daybreak staff. She still denied the Airbnb visit.
Reinmuth was terminated from her position on April 1, 2022, the notice stated. Her termination letter stated she had been dishonest during an interview with Daybreak staff and violated the facility’s ethics and conduct code by communicating with a former patient.
In another instance, the health department received a report that another former Daybreak employee, Alicia Stowe, had been arrested for having a sexual relationship with another patient, the notice stated. Stowe was also employed as a skills coach.
Stowe had sexual contact with the patient in March 2021 while the patient was receiving treatment at Daybreak, the notice stated. After discharge, the patient and Stowe arranged meetings for further sexual contact.
Stowe was fired from Daybreak “due to excessive absences and failing to use proper call out procedures” in February 2022, the notice stated. Her contact with the patient was reported first to police by Stowe’s spouse that same month, according to a probable cause affidavit. According to the notice, Daybreak did not file a report with the health department after being contacted by law enforcement.
The notice stated Daybreak’s claims of insufficient information for an investigation contradicted what law enforcement reported. The facility claimed its internal investigation, conducted about a year after being contacted by police, “couldn’t determine anything necessarily,” according to the notice.
During the investigation of the second case, the health department learned of allegations against a third skills coach at Daybreak, the notice stated. A patient reported LaRae Swope, another counselor, had initiated sexual contact with the patient without consent on numerous occasions during the patient’s stay between September and November of 2021.
Shortly after the patient’s discharge, Swope was fired over “concerns around professional and personal boundaries with Daybreak clients,” according to the notice. Swope’s conduct was not reported until health department investigators arrived for another case, more than a year after Swope was fired.
“This is despite the fact that current law requires (Daybreak) to report incidents to the department that involve serious or undesirable outcomes by the next business day, such as the incidents that resulted in Swope’s termination,” the notice stated.
Claims of obstruction
Health department investigators “observed a disturbing trend that staff at Daybreak Youth Services were actively discouraged by supervisors and members of Daybreak leadership from making, and failed to make, required reports to external agencies,” the notice stated.
Daybreak leadership misinformed staff on their status as mandatory reporters, and were coached by leadership on how and when to answer investigators, according to the notice.
Daybreak refused to allow health department investigators to interview patients and refused to provide patient lists from the time of the incidents or a current staff list, among a number of other requests, according to the notice. When investigators were able to get information, “employees demonstrated a highly unusual lack of knowledge” about their position duties, deferred to Daybreak’s attorney to an unusual level, and had a disregard of the seriousness of allegations against the facility, according to the notice.
That obstruction prevented investigators from doing routine activities while visiting Daybreak, the notice stated. Of the more than 700 facilities investigations in 2022, Daybreak was the only facility that refused to cooperate, according to the health department’s release.
Daybreak disputes claims by the health department that it hasn’t cooperated with investigations. In a release the same day as the suspension announcement, Daybreak alleged the health department “tried to slip in documents never seen before” a month after the deadline for submission.
Those documents “painted a bleak picture of a lawless and dangerous place,” Daybreak’s release stated. “By slipping them in after the discovery period it deprived Daybreak of the opportunity to vet the reports for accuracy, context and coercion.”
The release claimed recent documents obtained by Daybreak “showed the employees of (the health department) and the Health Care Authority have colluded to shut down Daybreak.”
“In my view, what the Department of Health did was an act of desperation,” David Smith, Daybreak’s attorney, stated in the release. “Actions like this leads me to believe the DOH no longer believes that it can prove the accusations they made in their original notice of intent. Their actions are vindictive and retaliatory.”
Daybreak files suit
On May 30, Daybreak announced it filed suit against the health department in Clark County Superior Court. The suit alleges that by moving to suspend the facility’s license ahead of a three-day weekend, it prevented Daybreak’s ability to appeal the suspension within the usual four-day window.
“The Department of Health violated Daybreak’s right to due process,” Smith stated in the announcement. “They are causing irreparable harm to Daybreak’s patients, their parents, and the organization itself.”
The facility disputed the health department’s use of “summary action” was warranted. Specifically, Daybreak argued that using incidents from 2021 and 2022 was unwarranted for the claim of “immediate danger.”
The latest suspension isn’t the first time the facility has been under state-level scrutiny. Daybreak also faced losing its license in 2018 after the Clark County Sheriff’s Office raided the facility.
The sheriff’s office accused the facility of failing to report allegations of sexual contact between patients, as well as between patients and staff. In 2019, Daybreak reached an agreement with the health department and was able to keep its licenses.
