A teenager claims he was forced to run away from a correctional home after gang members lodging there repeatedly targeted him for abuse.According to Kawesi Smith, staff at Oleander Cottage witnessed the treatment, but turned a blind eye.Staff at the Devonshire juvenile facility told The Royal Gazette they were unable to talk about individual clients.Child and Family Services, the department responsible for Oleander Cottage, did not respond to questions.The 16-year-old made headlines last week after police asked for public assistance in locating him.Kawesi, who had been missing since May 31, called this newspaper on June 4, as he prepared to turn himself in.He alleged that violent offenders at the facility were making his life unbearable and that he fled “not to run away, but to make my story known”.“There is a safety concern up there for boys that are from different areas,” he said.“Let’s say a group of boys from Somerset comes up and a group from town comes up the workers there don’t intervene when the fights start. They don’t really care about it.“Sometimes someone gets punished but it ain’t consistent. Like one time I was up there and I had a whole group of people trying to skylark me.“The staff just laughed. They might say ‘stop’, but they don’t really get involved. Most of them are young themselves.”The teen said he suffered cuts, scrapes and bruises at the hands of Parkside members who also reside at the home. Formerly known as Observatory Cottage, the facility provides treatment for adolescent males.Kawesi’s mother, Tracey Smith, said her son was sent to there after she ran into serious financial difficulties.“I had to be treated for a brain tumour three years ago,” said the mother-of-five. “I had so many debts; I was getting evicted; they were threatening to lock me up.”She turned to Residential Treatment Services and Oleander Cottage for help with her son last year.As a result, the family received assistance from the Cross Ministry Intervention Team in February.It was hoped that Kawesi could live with his grandmother, Rhonda Jennings but he was sent to Oleander Cottage because he failed to comply with recommendations made by Social Services.Kawesi’s family say they cannot understand why his three-month stay at the facility has stretched into nine months.“I think the facility is needed; I just don’t think it’s needed for my grandson,” said Ms Jennings. “He is a victim of attacks there.”Oleander Cottage is split between a low-security residence and a maximum security area, which is surrounded by a fence.According to Ms Jennings, her grandson has been transferred to the “lockdown area”, the facility’s higher security unit, as a result of this recent infraction.“They are working on helping him, and I know a couple of caregivers there he is very close to,” she said.Ms Smith conceded that her son has been at odds with some of the rules at Oleander Cottage.And Kawesi admitted breaking some of the rules at the residence.“I was down in the bottom, in the less constricted part,” he explained.“They were trying to send me [to the maximum security area] over a juice box incident and a lighter I had in my room.“They said that’s not allowed. I took off because it seems like I’m being prepared for jail. I just want help.”Ms Smith said her son had a number of scrapes and bruises when he showed up at her home last week.“There was something like a puncture wound on his hand, a cut on his elbow and neck, scrapes that looked like he had been dragged,” she said.She contacted Oleander Cottage and he was returned to the facility.Ms Jennings cautioned that the injuries may have been received while her grandson was “roughing it”.“They have got some hard children up there,” she said. “What we are trying to do is have him sent overseas to school. At the moment, Government does not have the money to send him away, but we’re working on it.“They were promising to send him away to school because he is being targeted all the time. Government agencies are still willing to help me get him out of here. It’s been almost two years and we’re hopeful it will work out.”Ms Smith claimed that Parkside members have repeatedly victimised her son at the facility. She said she feels powerless to get him out of residential care.“I would like that home to be completely remodelled and changed,” she said. “I feel it should be a place where the ones who are in there mandatorily should be in a separate environment from the bad boys.“The ones like my son, who have been in some trouble, still need to be kept apart [from the others sentenced to be there].”An employee of Summerhaven, a home for the physically challenged, Ms Jennings said her grandson had shown promise there as a volunteer.Said Summerhaven board of trustees chairman John Powell: “He has been doing some work here and he loves to help out.”Mr Powell invited anyone able to assist Kawesi to send him an e-mail: summerhaven@northrock.bm.For now, Kawesi remains at Oleander Cottage.Useful website: www.families4change.com.