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| Judge Approves Mental Health Plan For Conn. Kids In Detention |
| By Hartford Courant |
| Published: 07/05/2002 |
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A federal judge has approved a plan to provide hundreds of children in state juvenile detention with quicker mental health assessments and more comprehensive mental health care. The plan requires state officials to use outpatient and community-based mental health services to relieve crowding in the state's three juvenile detention centers, where children are sometimes forced to sleep on the floors. Legal advocates for the youths have long argued that the crowding is caused by a logjam of kids stuck in detention while waiting for mental health care due to a shortage of state services and beds. Those advocates took the state to court earlier this year in an attempt to force the state to provide better services. U.S. District Court Judge Robert N. Chatigny ruled in February that the state was violating the children's constitutional rights by holding them in detention while they awaited evaluations or care. Chatigny ordered the advocates and two state agencies - the state Department of Children and Families, which is responsible for adolescent mental health care, and the state Judicial Branch, which operates the detention centers - to come up with a plan to address the situation. After months of negotiation, that 12-page plan was approved by Chatigny in U.S. District Court in Hartford on June 24. Of the 12,000 children who pass through juvenile court each year, about 3,000 wind up in detention. Studies show that about 60 percent of those children need some form of mental health treatment and as many as seven might be on a suicide watch on any given day. Under the new plan, children admitted to detention will be immediately screened for suicide risks and other mental health needs. If a youth is determined to possibly have serious mental health needs, the child will be recommended for a more extensive evaluation either in an outpatient program near their community or in an inpatient hospital program depending on their level of need. The state has until Oct. 1 to set up the new outpatient evaluation and treatment system. |
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