New Hampshire’s youth detention system failed its most vulnerable residents on multiple fronts, according to a sweeping 12-page investigation released Tuesday by the Legislature’s Oversight Commission on Children’s Services. The report, which covers conditions at the Sununu Youth Services Center in Manchester, found that budget decisions in Concord, leadership failures inside the facility itself, and a stubborn reluctance to adopt therapeutic practices all contributed to an environment where roughly 15 children between the ages of 13 and 17 were placed in conditions one child described, simply, as being “in jail.”
The findings are damning for the Division for Children, Youth, and Families, the state agency that oversees the Sununu Center, and they come at a pivotal moment: NHPR reports that DCYF officials are scheduled to appear before the Commission this Friday to provide a formal public response to the findings. The report goes well beyond the original abuse allegations that first triggered the legislative inquiry in March, painting a broader picture of systemic neglect that lawmakers say must now be addressed through legislation, increased oversight, and restored funding.
How This Investigation Began
The path to this report started with New Hampshire’s Office of the Child Advocate, a small but critical watchdog agency. In March 2026, the Child Advocate released its own report disclosing allegations of illegal restraints, improper seclusions, and a prolonged lockdown during which children at the Sununu Center were denied access to full educational services and, in some cases, fresh air for nearly six weeks.
That March disclosure set off a chain reaction. The state Attorney General’s office opened its own investigation. The Disability Rights Center in New Hampshire began documenting additional potential abuse. And the Legislature’s Oversight Commission convened an ad hoc committee to conduct its own inquiry, the results of which are now public.
The scope of what investigators found extended well past any single incident. It revealed a culture of opacity inside DCYF, a shortage of staff at the center itself, and a mismatch between what state law required and what was actually happening on the ground.
Budget Cuts Had Consequences
One of the most striking threads running through the report is how decisions made in the State House directly weakened the very agencies responsible for protecting children at the Sununu Center.
Last year, House Republicans moved to defund the Office of the Child Advocate entirely. The state Senate stepped in and restored some funding, but not all of it. As a result, the Child Advocate had to reduce the time its staff spent with children inside the center after losing funding for four of its nine employees. The office that ultimately blew the whistle on conditions at the Sununu Center was doing so while operating at roughly half-capacity.
Senate President Sharon Carson, who chairs the Oversight Commission, was direct about the connection between those budget choices and the crisis that followed. “This is what happens when the funding disappears, and they don’t have what they need in order to run the facility properly,” Carson said at a recent committee meeting. “I’m putting a call out to the public to stand up and stand with us and say, ‘Look, we need to make sure that these things are funded and funded at a level that is going to help kids and not hurt them.’”
Carson confirmed she will work with lawmakers to reimburse My Turn, a nonprofit that has provided education services for children at the center and which announced it would not renew its contract after DCYF said it could not cover $100,000 of its costs. “You can’t expect them to absorb that cost,” Carson said. “We can’t allow these children to sit there without their educational needs being placed.”
The staffing picture at the center itself is also strained. According to the report, the Sununu Youth Services Center is currently short 14 youth counselors, a deficit that strains the ability of remaining staff to follow therapeutic protocols and monitor conditions appropriately.
The Law Wasn’t Followed
A 2023 New Hampshire law made it clear that the Sununu Center was required to operate under a trauma-informed, therapeutic model. Staff were to be trained in de-escalation techniques. Children were to have regular access to exercise, family visits, and the wraparound services they need to successfully return to their communities.
The Oversight Commission found that not all of those legal mandates are being met.
Committee members pointed to the nearly six-week lockdown in early 2026, during which children’s access to the outdoors and to teachers was sharply curtailed. They documented staff using strip searches on children to look for weapons and contraband, despite the fact that a body scanner capable of doing the same job has been sitting inside the building unused for two years. And they found evidence that staff training has leaned toward military-style tactics rather than the therapeutic approaches required by law.
Rep. Kim Rice was pointed in her assessment during an April committee meeting. “The law was quite clear and it was not a suggestion,” Rice said. “So I’m not quite sure why the facility is struggling with this because they’ve had, in my humble opinion, ample time to train the staff and to really implement some good programming.”
The report also documented that a video recording confirmed staff used physical restraint on a child without imminent risk of harm, held a child in an illegal prone position for approximately three and a half minutes, and delayed medical care for a broken bone.
A Culture of Self-Investigation
Perhaps the most significant structural problem identified in the report involves the oversight relationship between DCYF and the Sununu Center. Lawmakers said their investigation convinced them that the agency has been essentially investigating itself, a situation they describe as producing a “culture of circling the wagons.”
The report cited discrepancies in the information DCYF provided to the commission, and noted a “pervasive lack of transparency and oversight” in the agency’s interactions with lawmakers and child advocates.
In response, commission members say they intend to file legislation that would give the Office of the Child Advocate direct authority over DCYF, eliminating the self-investigation problem at its root. The report also recommends potentially withholding state funding from DCYF if the division fails to implement the trauma-informed approach required by the 2023 law.
The departure of Joshua Nye, who submitted his resignation as director of the Sununu Center on May 20, 2026, effective immediately, marked one significant change at the leadership level. DCYF Director Marie Noonan accepted the resignation. The commission’s report recommends more sweeping changes in how the facility is led and overseen.
Some Signs of Progress
The report is not without its acknowledgments of what is working. Staff and children at the Sununu Center identified youth counselors and other employees that children trust and that are doing good work within a difficult environment. My Turn’s educational programming received strong praise from both children and lawmakers, which makes the contract dispute over $100,000 all the more urgent to resolve.
The commission also noted that exercise time and classroom access are no longer being restricted at the level documented during the lockdown. And DCYF has finalized a policy to begin actually using the body scanner that has sat idle in the building for two years. The commission called that “a significant development.”
Still, Carson made clear that Friday’s meeting will mark only the beginning of accountability, not the end. The public will be watching whether DCYF leadership demonstrates a genuine willingness to implement reform or continues to deflect responsibility for conditions that, by any measure, failed the children in the state’s care.
What Comes Next
The Oversight Commission’s report comes at the same time the broader question of how New Hampshire cares for its youngest and most at-risk residents is under scrutiny across state government. The resignation of Sununu Center Director Joshua Nye last week was one visible signal of the institutional reckoning underway. Earlier documentation of staff conduct and the lockdown at the center helped establish the public record that lawmakers drew on for this investigation.
The Office of the Child Advocate, the agency that started all of this, now faces a choice point of its own. Its budget was cut, its capacity was reduced, and yet it still produced the March report that forced the issue into public view. The Oversight Commission is now recommending that the Child Advocate’s budget be increased and its authority expanded. Whether the Legislature follows through on that recommendation will say a great deal about whether New Hampshire is serious about protecting the children in its care, or simply willing to weather a news cycle and move on.
Also worth watching: whether the Attorney General’s separate investigation produces any criminal findings related to the restraint incidents, and whether My Turn finds a path to continue providing education at the center while the contract dispute is resolved.
For related coverage, see our reporting on NH Youth Detention Officials Acknowledge Leadership Failures While Disputing ….
