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CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — West Virginia has agreed to expand mental-health services for children after a federal investigation found that the state unnecessarily institutionalized youths with emotional or behavioral disorders.
Officials from the U.S. Department of Justice and West Virginia announced the agreement Tuesday at a news conference. The deal requires the state to develop and improve in-home and community-based mental-health services to reduce the number of children in residential centers.
Federal investigators told state officials in 2015 that West Virginia wasn’t complying with the Americans with Disabilities Act by sending mentally ill children away to residential centers rather than providing treatment where they live.
Assistant Attorney General Eric Dreiband of the justice department’s Civil Rights Division listed examples of children struggling to navigate the state’s mental-health-care system.
He spoke about a 10-year-old boy who was put in a psychiatric hospital and residential-treatment facilities at least four times, worsening his condition, after his parents sought help for his mental-health problems.
Dreiband said a 14-year-old girl who couldn’t get treatment in her community spent seven months in a segregated out-of-state facility, hours from her family, sleeping on an air mattress and taking cold showers.
“This is not a way for children to get better,” he said.
Officials said West Virginia will focus on mobile-crisis services, therapeutic foster care and in-home therapy. It also will come up with a plan to eliminate the unnecessary use of residential facilities for children who can be treated in their communities, they said.
“The goal of this agreement is that every family get the services they deserve,” U.S. Attorney Mike Stuart said.
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