Diocese urges changes at Hanna Boys Center

The Diocese of Santa Rosa last month urged Hanna Boys Center executive board members to adopt one of three options for the organization’s future, according to a source close to the board. The Diocese’s recommendations will be reviewed in future meetings, a Hanna official told the Index-Tribune.

Bishop Robert F. Vasa of the Diocese of Santa Rosa, who sits on the board of trustees of Hanna Boys Center, presented the board with three options at its last executive meeting, according to sources familiar with the meeting.

The options included selling Hanna and turning over the money from the closure to the Diocese, which is outlined in Hanna’s articles of incorporation; turn Archbishop Hanna High School into a co-ed school similar to Santa Rosa’s Cardinal Newman; or hire Boys Town, or a similar child-welfare nonprofit, to take over the operations of the center.

“With the Bishop being a board member, we often have discussions with him on various matters,” said Tullus Miller, chair of the board of trustees for Hanna. “Any matters discussed with the Bishop, as is with any board member, will be carefully and thoroughly considered in future board meetings. We are always consistently looking for better ways to improve the Hanna Boys Center and what is best for our young men.”

According to the Hanna Boys Center bylaws, which were amended in 2016, Vasa has limited individual power and must get the board’s approval on any action, according to a source close to the board. Multiple requests by the Index-Tribune for a comment from Vasa went unanswered.

There are 14 schools in the Diocese of Santa Rosa, including Archbishop Hanna High School and St. Francis Solano Catholic School in Sonoma.

It has been a troubling last few years for Hanna Boys Center (HBC), most recently with three lawsuits filed against the organization by former employees who charge they were wrongfully terminated during the center’s reorganization last spring, which the employees allege was used to retaliate against them and other employees who voiced complaints against the center.

The employees allege that drug abuse and bullying increased after Hanna’s current CEO, Brian Farragher, came on board and changed the way discipline and other actions are administered.

In a letter written to the Index-Tribune in response to an opinion piece written by Farragher (“Close to home: Making needed changes at Hanna Boys Center,” Aug. 18) that ran in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, eight former employees of Hanna allege that Farragher’s implementation and interpretation of “trauma-informed care” (TIC) has created an atmosphere of “havoc” at Hanna, and call on the board to take action against Farragher.

“We urge the current board to stand up to Farragher and dismiss him immediately,” the letter writers wrote. The letter was signed by Wayne Antol, Ken Bertini, Rita Bertini, Jerry Borchelt, Mick Chantler, Connor Exline, Michael Nilan and Blair Phelan.

Some of the ex-employees told the Index-Tribune that they left Hanna because of the way Farragher is running the center. Farragher was away last week and could not be reached for comment.

Miller told the Index-Tribune that despite their differences, “I know we all care about Hanna.”

“We value all the stakeholders of Hanna Boys Center, and want what is best for the boys and HBC,” said Miller. “The teachers failed to mention the past harm some boys encountered while attending HBC, and HBC is using (trauma-informed care) to help forge a new and safe pathway. The board approved a strategic plan, which includes (trauma-informed care), that we believe, among other objectives, will help HBC make its way forward. At this point, we are executing on that plan.”

In 2018, Hanna Boys Center lost a wrongful termination lawsuit filed by former clinical director Tim Norman, who was fired after he brought similar whistleblower complaints to the board in 2016. A jury awarded $1.1 million to Norman.

Multiple allegations of sexual abuse by former residents have also roiled Hanna, which is currently on probation with the Community Care Licensing under the Department of Social Services for failing to protect its residents listed among the violations.

Two brothers who were sexually abused by Kevin Thorpe, then a clinical director at Hanna, were awarded a $6.8 million settlement in June, 2019. Thorpe was sentenced to 21 years in prison on 11 counts in 2018 for abuse that took place over a 10-year period.

A 17-year-old resident alleged statutory rape by a 22-year-old female cottage counselor in 2017. That case was settled out of court.

Hanna’s former director, Rev. John Crews, has not been arrested, but has been accused by multiple former residents of sexual abuse. He resigned from Hanna in 2013 following the first allegation, which came from the widow of a man who told his wife that Crews sexually abused him in 1971, before Crews came to Hanna in 1984.

Contact Anne at anne.ernst@sonomanews.com.