Kane County officials are trying to find short-term and long-term solutions to space limitations and safety concerns at the Kane County Diagnostic Center at 757 E. Fabyan Parkway in Batavia — the last remaining operational building on the former Kane County Sheriff’s Office and jail property.

Dr. Alexandra Tsang, director of the Kane County Diagnostic Center, told members of the County Board Committee of the Whole on July 29 that working conditions have been difficult for the center’s five clinical staff members and three doctoral interns. In recent months, staff members have had to evacuate the building due to flooding, space heaters had to be brought in during the polar vortex days of winter, the kitchen and bathroom water is yellow, and in January, three staff members were diagnosed with carbon monoxide poisoning.

Three interns are working from an 11-by-8-foot office space, Tsang said. There is just one treatment room, and the building has no centralized location for more than 100 psychological instruments.

The Diagnostic Center is the forensic psychology department for the 16th Judicial Circuit and provides psychological services to juvenile and adult offenders. It conducts diagnostic evaluations, crisis intervention and individual group and family psychotherapy.

The evaluations include but are not limited to sex-offender evaluations and psychological evaluations for domestic battery, school shooting, juvenile residential placement, substance abuse, arson and theft. The center conducted 569 evaluations in 2013 and is far ahead of that pace in 2014.

“Our numbers just keep growing and growing,” Tsang said.

Part of the problem is that the facility is isolated on the former jail and Sheriff’s Office campus, and most of the other buildings on the site were razed after the move to the Judicial Center campus on Route 38 in St. Charles. The Diagnostic Center has no direct access to Fabyan Parkway, no public transportation access and no security staff, so employees are concerned when they have to do psychological evaluations at various hours of the day and night, Tsang said.

Tsang’s presentation to the Committee of the Whole also underlined that quality facilities will be necessary if the center hopes to receive accreditation from the Association of Psychology Postdoctoral  and Internship Centers, and the accreditation will be needed to continue the internship program that has been so valuable to keeping costs down.

Tsang said the stipends for thee interns is $46,500, while the total value of the work they do is $650,775.

County Board member Barb Wojnicki said Tsang’s report was valuable because it reminded County Board members of the important work of the Diagnostic Center as well as the need to find a new location.

“What’s key in all of this is the isolation,” she said. “We don’t want to put our doctors and their interns in harm’s way. We need to think about moving them elsewhere.”

Building Maintenance Issues

• Evicted from building because of flooding
• Air/heat has been chronic issue
  • Space heaters in every office
• Water quality is poor
  • – Kitchen and bathroom water is yellow
• Carbon monoxide poisoning
  • – 3 Staff were diagnosed with CO2 poisoning in January 2014

Safety Concerns

• Evening hours are required
• Isolated
• No metal detectors
• No security personnel
• Inclement weather  impacts building use (rain/snow impedes access to building)
• No safe harbor
• No public transportation

Read More

Kane County facility for criminal psychological exams called unsafe