County supervisors examine practice of moving kids
Rockbridge County
supervisors have appointed a committee to look into a current practice
that sends local troubled and disabled children out of the county to private care
facilities.
They acted after a local foster mother, Susan Lawrence, spent several
months urging them to act. The county does not have the resources to
treat all children in need.
Lawrence has been working for more than a year to win custody of a local
boy from the state Department of Social Services office that serves
Rockbridge County, Lexington and Buena Vista. On Oct. 16, Juvenile and
Domestic Relations Court Judge Anita Filson gave Lawrence final custody
of the boy, removing him from the care of the local DSS office.
Lawrence has been using the state’s Freedom of Information law to get
documents from the state related to the boy’s case, mostly regarding a
facility in Staunton called Liberty Point Healthcare. The facility,
which treats adolescent boys, has been cited by the state for two
violations in the past two years.
Other facilities owned by Liberty Point’s parent company, Psychiatric
Solutions Inc., have been also cited, but it could not be determined
whether Rockbridge area children have been sent to other Virginia
facilities owned by PSI.
Lawrence says that local children are not only being torn away from
family and community connections, but are also sometimes facing abusive
conditions.
The state uses private facilities to house and treat children with
disabilities and behavioral problems that local communities cannot
handle, said Leslie Anderson, director of the Office of Licensing for
the state’s Department of Mental Health, Mental Retardation, and
Substance Abuse Service. Most of the 25 centers licensed by her office
are operated by for-profit corporations, Anderson said.
That option is costly for taxpayers and can lead to abuse for the child,
Lawrence says.
“The reality is we remove these children from these homes and put them
in places where they get hurt, sometimes a whole lot more than in the
home,” Lawrence said.
Currently, 16 children from Rockbridge County, Lexington and Buena Vista
are being sent to residential treatment centers outside of the area
because there are no facilities in the county, said Meredith Downey,
director of the local DSS office. That includes children in foster care
and others who have been placed at a facility by parents, Downey said.
PSI, the parent company of Liberty Point, is a publicly traded company
that operates 91 facilities nationwide. In July, the company announced a
record-breaking quarter, with revenues of $354,126,000. PSI operates 10
facilities in Virginia.
Between February 2006 and March 2007, Virginia’s Department of Mental
Health, Mental Retardation, and Substance Abuse Services investigated
six reported incidents at Liberty Point. After investigating, the
department cited the center for two violations.
One involved a staff member using “inappropriate and unnecessary
restraint” of a resident, according to a report released by the
department. The other incident involved a staff member punching a
resident in the face during a physical hold in his room, which resulted
in a cut requiring three stitches. The staff member was fired, according
to the document.
A Liberty Point employee said no one was available for comment Thursday.
Lawrence says she recently filed a Freedom of Information Act request
for any investigation reports completed since March 2007 about Liberty
Point.
Local DSS offices are usually told about abuses at facilities, either by
the facility or child-protective services, Anderson said.
But Downey said she was not aware of any prior abuses. No foster care
children are attending the Liberty Point facility currently, she said.
Lawrence says the local DSS office is not doing enough for foster
children. She has been petitioning Rockbridge County supervisors to
bring children back into the county for local services. She has
addressed the board at several meetings and in letters since last
spring.
Earlier this month, Supervisors Mack Smith and Monty Fix agreed to form
a committee to look into complaints about the system.
In September, Lawrence attended a statewide conference called “Systems
of Care & Evidence-Based Practices” held by the Virginia Commission on
Youth and the Virginia Department of Mental Health, Mental Retardation,
and Substance Abuse Services. The two-day conference held in Roanoke
looked at different ways of providing services to children with
behavioral health disorders, including bringing children back into the
community for local services.
Lawrence says she was the only representative from Rockbridge County.
The keynote speaker was Anne Holton, who is married to Gov. Tim Kaine.
Holton has started a program called “For Keeps” and has looked at
promoting stable family and community bonds for Virginia’s foster care
children.
Lawrence says both the children and the community would benefit from
having money redirected to the community. For example, services per
child at Liberty Point start at $603.20 a day, or more than $220,000 a
year. While much of this cost is covered by state and federal funding,
the county and municipalities pay 23 to 30 percent, according to Downey.
Downey said the county, for the past year and a half, has been looking
into having facilities established in the area. She said that had no
connection to recently raised concerns. However, some children may
continue to be sent out of the county even with a local facility, she
said.
“When you develop such a facility, you cannot specialize in all the
categories of children we deal with,” Downey said.
Lawrence says the teenage boy she has received custody of is doing well
in her care. She said she has to wait six months before she can adopt
the child.
But that will not be the end of her call to change the current system,
Lawrence says.
“My feeling is that I can’t take my kids out of a train wreck and not go
back for somebody else’s,” she said.
Virginia Department of Social Services
Produced by Washington and Lee journalism students.
Lead supervisor: Prof. Brian Richardson
Reporting supervisors:
Technical supervisor: Michael Todd