A Minnesota Department of Human Services investigation has found that an employee at Nexus Gerard Family Healing in Austin sexually abused three children and provided marijuana products to seven children at the residential treatment facility, according to a report from the department's Office of Inspector General issued on November 5. A second employee was found to have given nicotine vapes to four children, a finding state regulators classified as neglect. Both employees have denied the allegations.
Nexus Gerard Family Healing serves children and teenagers with mental health diagnoses at its Austin campus, according to reporting from KTTC. Investigators concluded the first employee had sexual contact with three children on multiple occasions, and found that the children who received marijuana products overlapped with those the employee sexually abused. DHS determined the employee was responsible for recurring and serious maltreatment, and the employee left the facility in February 2026, according to the investigation.
The case came to light after a child reported the employee's alleged conduct to a facility nurse on April 10, 2026. That child told investigators they had feared not being believed or facing retaliation if they had spoken up sooner. Investigators found that children gave consistent accounts of what happened to family members, caregivers, facility staff, or the state investigator. Facility administrators said they had not known of concerns about the employee's sexual contact with children or provision of vapes before the child's disclosure, though the employee had previously faced corrective action over poor boundaries with children — including buying a child an MP3 player and buying food for children.
Internal Review Reached No Conclusion
Nexus Gerard began its own internal review on April 13, 2026, but that review produced inconclusive findings on whether maltreatment occurred involving either employee. The facility has since retrained the second employee on professionalism and boundaries. DHS determined that future required background checks for covered programs would disqualify the former employee from the sexual-abuse case, and the department separately disqualified the second employee from any covered position involving direct contact with, or access to, service recipients over the vaping findings. Investigators concluded the second employee provided nicotine vapes to four children on multiple occasions. Both employees may appeal their respective findings.
A third employee was also scrutinized after two children reported, in separate incidents, that the staffer became sexually aroused while restraining them. Investigators found insufficient evidence to determine that sexual abuse occurred in that case. The third employee denied the allegations, and other staff members who witnessed the restraints said the claims were untrue and that the holds followed facility policy. An investigator reviewing footage of one restraint incident said they observed no concerns, though the hold was not fully shown on camera. Local law enforcement received multiple reports about the allegations but did not investigate further.
A Pattern Across Nexus Facilities
A Pattern Across Nexus Facilities This is not the first maltreatment finding tied to the Gerard campus. According to KSTP, a separate DHS report found physical abuse and neglect occurred last year at Nexus Gerard near Albert Lea after a staff person had their arms around a child's neck for 30 seconds. One teen told investigators that abuse by the same Nexus Gerard staff member happened “at least, if not over, 50 times” between October 2025 and February 2026, and that employee had previously received multiple corrective actions for poor boundaries with youth. The station reported the state has not taken licensing action against Nexus Gerard, even as the campus has received more than $2.6 million in state and county funding since 2022.
The station's broader review found DHS investigators identified a dozen maltreatment cases across five Nexus-operated facilities since 2022, and that roughly one in five of the 93 children's residential treatment facilities statewide have had a confirmed maltreatment finding in that same period. A review of contracts with ten counties found Nexus had been paid more than $18 million over the preceding four years. Separately, maltreatment findings have surfaced at other Nexus locations, including a May 19, 2025 incident at Nexus East Bethel where an unsupervised child wrapped strips of cloth around their neck and their face turned blue, and a substantiated finding from December 2024 involving a staff member showing a resident videos of sexual encounters, as reported by Sahan Journal. Minnesota briefly suspended Nexus East Bethel's license over an imminent risk of harm before lifting the suspension through a settlement agreement, per the same KSTP review.
Other Incidents At The Austin Campus
Other reports have described additional problems at the Austin facility. KAAL-TV / ABC 6 News reported that an employee was fired after allegedly punching a 17-year-old patient, though that staff member was not charged or arrested. The same outlet reported separately that a 12-year-old fractured their humerus during a physical interaction with staff on January 15, an injury that required surgery to repair, according to KAAL-TV. Sahan Journal's review also found Nexus East Bethel had incurred more than three dozen violations since opening and $1,400 in state fines, while three other local psychiatric residential treatment facilities received correction orders without being shut down.
Concerns about staff vetting at Nexus are not new. A 2016 Star Tribune report found the company did not always comply with state requirements for conducting background checks on its staff, and in a 2015 case at a Minnetonka facility, DHS found a preponderance of evidence that a male staff person had sexual contact with a girl who had reported being raped, according to the Star Tribune. A current Minnesota Department of Human Services license lookup lists Nexus Family Healing's license for children's residential facilities as active.
