Child care facility under tight watch following brutal beating

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) - 24-Hour News went inside Damar Services Tuesday afternoon following last week’s brutal beating that left a 10-year-old boy hospitalized . We wanted to see how the facility is set up and how workers are trained to handle residents living there.

Behind closed doors it's a 42-acre campus on the west side of Indianapolis under 24-hour surveillance.

24-Hour News 8 talked to the president of Damar Services and a former worker of the facility.

"What ever happens behind the green gates, sort of stays behind the green gates," said former Damar Services employee Matthew Wood.

Damar Services is a place under even tighter watch after a 14-year-old resident brutally attacked a 10-year-old resident inside the gated facility.

"Children at this campus facing some of life's greatest developmental behavioral challenges," said Damar President & CEO Greg Johnson. "Our staff members acted in a very quick manner to this, unfortunately the injuries still occurred."

There are seven residential buildings, one educational building, a cafeteria and gymnasium for the residents.

Over 800 employees work at Damar and while many of them hired are certified, some are not.

"Our direct care employees come to us and we provide that training ourselves. Some may come with us through previous training, they may have worked someplace else and have that training," said Johnson.

Johnson believes the training is enough to handle the children.

"Sometimes Damar is the last best hope for some of these kids," he said.

But Matthew Wood said there's a lack of responsibility and supervision inside the center.

"There's multiple instances across the board where incidents have happened and you can trace 90 percent of them back to poor supervision," said Wood.

At this point, it’s unclear whether more supervision would have prevented the brutal attack.

"Even though we do everything in our power to prevent those things from occurring, and we have some of the best staffing levels of any organization that I've seen, sometimes those types of situations our can occur despite our best efforts," said Johnson.

Johnson told 24-Hour News 8 that every incident that happens at Damar Services is reported.

There could be hundreds of more incidents but the public will never know because those reports are sent to Child Protective Services and are confidential.