That a state would have insufficient intensive residential care for children is more common than one would expect. South Carolina’s Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) is desperate for access to psychiatric residential treatment facility (PRTF) beds for children. That state’s PRTF beds are filled with children from other states, leaving little room for children from South Carolina and forcing the…
Posts tagged as “out of state”
These news stories report the harm done to children and families when child welfare agencies and managed care organizations routinely place children in out-of-state facilities. As Louisiana learned from the Gary W. case filed in 1974, placing children far from home, out of sight, and out of mind, allows bad things to happen to them – often repeatedly – due…
Following the creation of the Louisiana Behavioral Health Partnership and continuing under Healthy Louisiana (formerly, Bayou Health), Louisiana children began being placed in other states for residential care for the first time since the 1970’s. The placement of children from one state to another is currently a hot button topic in child welfare. Some states have allowed the practice to…
Louisiana’s children face a serious problem. Simply stated, we do not have enough beds to meet the needs of our children. Louisiana’s children are being placed out-of-state. Louisiana had nearly 8,200 foster children in SFY 2015. There were roughly 2,200 foster homes. With extremely limited emergency shelter care – unavailable in nearly every region of the state, a persistent and…
7/10/2015 – A year has passed since the June 2014 release of the advocacy paper, Advocacy Paper Louisiana’s Children are Being Placed Out of State. Today I would like to remind you of that paper and provide an update regarding Louisiana’s current ability to care for its own children. That we are still without a complete child welfare system in…
Yesterday, Monday, June 2, was the last day of Louisiana’s 2014 Legislative Session. With legislative politics set aside for another year, Louisiana’s 2015 gubernatorial race now begins in earnest. Today, June 3, Louisiana United Methodist Children and Family Services releases the first in a series of child advocacy papers designed to draw the attention of Louisiana’s gubernatorial candidates toward significant…