Kids' Mental Health Lawsuit Filed Against Washington State
Unable to access services, kids harmed from hospitalization, incarceration
Children and youth in Washington state have filed a civil rights, class-action lawsuit against the state for failure to provide intensive, community-based mental health services.
The 10 plaintiffs, all under age 21, say that children and youth with serious mental illness are not being provided adequate care that would allow them to remain safely at home. They are being cycled in and out of institutions, psychiatric hospitals, and jails. They are homeless or end up in foster care and have families in crisis. They are dropping out of school. They are at greater risk for suicide or aggravation of mental health issues. With help, these children can succeed; but the system is failing them.
“Treating children who have serious mental health needs at home is much more humane, effective, and less costly,” said NCYL Deputy Director Patrick Gardner, co-counsel on the case. “Now is the time to act, so we don’t lose even more children to institutionalization, incarceration, and despair.”
The plaintiffs, diagnosed with significant mental health conditions such as bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and major depression, allege inability to access intensive home-based services from the State's mental health system. They claim children and youth across the State suffer significant harm from repeated hospitalizations, incarcerations, separation from family, and social isolation.
Plaintiffs are suing Department of Social and Health Services' (DSHS) Secretary Susan Dreyfus, claiming that DSHS has known for years that its mental health system has significant gaps that result in excessive demand for long-term psychiatric facility and hospital placement. The complaint, filed November 24, 2009, states DSHS is obligated under federal law to arrange services needed to improve mental health for Medicaid-eligible children and youth. The complaint further states Congress established this obligation so youth could acquire appropriate services before reaching adulthood, to preclude worsening or chronic mental health conditions in later life.
Children and youth require treatments that are more intensive and flexible than the typical weekly office-based therapy and medications, the suit says, and they should be able to access services like one-to-one in-home behavioral aides, therapeutic mentors, and mobile crisis services. These services would help prevent school failures, family instability, psychiatric harm, avoidable hospitalization, institutionalization, suicide attempts, risk of foster care placement and juvenile detention these youth and children have experienced.
"For a long time we have needed to retool the children's mental health system, to make home and community services the cornerstone of care. The plaintiff children cannot wait for a different economic forecast, they need this help now," said Regan Bailey of Disability Rights Washington.
The plaintiffs claim that DSHS's actions violate their rights under the Medicaid Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Fourteenth Amendment. They are also seeking an injunction requiring DSHS to provide them with the intensive mental health services they need in order for their conditions to improve.
