“Children with disabilities deserve to live with their families and in the communities they call home,” a Justice Department official said.
Nevada children with behavioral health issues will now be able to get treatment where they live instead of being sent to institutions far from their homes, according to a settlement between the state and the Justice Department announced Friday.
“Children with disabilities deserve to live with their families and in the communities they call home,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in a news release. “These children should not be isolated in hospitals and residential treatment facilities, far from their homes.”
The announcement came after the Justice Department found that the state violated the ADA by “unnecessarily segregating children with behavioral health disabilities in hospitals and residential treatment facilities.”
A Friday news release from the department detailing the agreement said that the state now must — among other things — screen and assess children who may have behavioral health disabilities; provide them with expanded home and community-based services such as mobile crisis and stabilization services, respite care, and individual and family therapy; and improve diversion and transition processes to ensure children are being moved as quickly as possible from segregated placements.
The release also said that the state violated the Supreme Court’s 1999 decision in Olmstead v. L.C., which established that under the ADA, the unjustified institutionalization of a person with disabilities is discriminatory when the treating provider believes that community-based care is appropriate, the person impacted does not oppose community-based care, and the placement can be reasonably accommodated given resources available and the needs of others receiving services.
The announcement came after a years-long probe into whether the state had been unnecessarily relying on segregated, institutional settings to treat children with behavioral health disabilities. By 2022, the Justice Department had determined that Nevada failed to provide adequate community-based services to these kids.
The Review-Journal previously reported the investigation’s findings, including that more than 1,700 of Nevada’s children were hospitalized for psychiatric care in fiscal year 2020. During the same time period, more than 480 children were treated in residential treatment facilities, staying for an average of nine to 12 months, with 27 percent staying for over a year.
On Friday, the department filed a complaint against the state. Simultaneously, the parties requested that the court dismiss the case but retain the right to enforce the agreement, the news release said, adding that an independent reviewer would evaluate the state’s compliance.
The news release said that children with disabilities had been a significant focus in the Civil Rights Division’s effort to enforce the Olmstead decision. Maine, Florida, and Alaska have also faced lawsuits from the Justice Department alleging that children with disabilities or complex medical needs had been unnecessarily institutionalized.
Contact Akiya Dillon at adillon@reviewjournal.com.
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