State Supreme Court Urged to Overrule Jailing of Foster Youth
May 2, 2006—National and state experts on the mental health needs of foster children today asked the Washington Supreme Court to review lower court decisions that allow judges to incarcerate children as punishment for running away from foster placements.
The decision being appealed involves two girls who, at age 15, were sentenced to up to 60 days at the Yakima County Juvenile Detention Facility, despite their known mental health problems. The girls did not receive the treatment they needed during their time in detention. Two “friend of the court” briefs filed today cite social science research demonstrating that locking up children who run away from foster homes both harms them and fails to stop them from running away.
“The very reason these youth were placed into foster care—a history of abuse and rejection—makes them more likely to run from a foster care placement,” states the brief filed by three state entities, Columbia Legal Services, TeamChild and the University of Washington Law School Children and Youth Advocacy Clinic, and the National Center for Youth Law, based in Oakland, CA. “Incarceration does nothing to alter those circumstances,” the brief says. Instead, by separating the girls from friends, family and school, it further alienates them.
A second brief, filed by the Washington D.C.-based Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law and the Seattle law firm of Preston Gates & Ellis on behalf of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP), reminds the Supreme Court of its 2003 opinion in Braam v. State of Washington (www.braamkids.com). That opinion led to a landmark settlement mandating, among other things, “timely, accessible, individualized and appropriate” mental health services for all children in foster care. Failure to fully implement the settlement is contributing to foster youths’ running away, both briefs point out.
“Up to 80 percent of children in this nation’s foster care systems have significant mental health needs,” said Tammy Seltzer, staff attorney at the Bazelon Center and co-author of the AACAP brief. “Courts in a number of states have held that just shutting youth away without appropriate services —whether in jails or treatment centers or large group homes—does nothing to help them.”
Seltzer cited a recent federal court order requiring California’s child welfare system (the nation’s largest) to develop appropriate home- and community-based services for all foster children with mental health needs.
“The child welfare system’s failure to provide appropriate services in safe foster placements is a major reason these youth run away,” said Beth Colgan of Columbia Legal Services. “Often, they are simply trying to assert control over their chaotic lives in the foster care system.”
“Kids should not be punished because their families, communities and public systems have failed them,” said Pat Arthur of the National Center for Youth Law. “Foster youth who run away from placements need empathy, compassion and treatment, not jail time.”
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The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) is a professional organization of child and adolescent psychiatrists trained to promote healthy development of children and adolescents, and to evaluate, diagnose, and treat them when affected by disorders of feeling, thinking and behavior. For more information, please visit www.aacap.org.
The Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law is the nation’s leading legal advocate for the rights of children and adults with mental disabilities. For more information on the Bazelon Center, please visit www.bazelon.org.
Columbia Legal Services (CLS) is a private, non-profit organization employing lawyers and legal workers who provide legal assistance to low-income and special needs people and organizations in Washington. For more information, please visit www.columbialegal.org.
The National Center for Youth Law (NCYL) is a private, non-profit organization devoted to using the law to improve the lives of poor children nationwide. For more information, please visit www.youthlaw.org.
TeamChild is a nationally recognized, non-profit civil legal advocacy program for children involved with the juvenile justice system in Washington state. For more information, please visit www.teamchild.org.
The University of Washington Law School’s Children and Youth Advocacy Clinic (CAYAC) was established in 1996 as a multi-disciplinary program between the schools of law, social work and medicine to provide a holistic approach to child advocacy for children in the dependency system. For more information, please visit www.law.washington.edu/clinics/Child.html.
Judge David L. Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law
1101 15th Street, NW, Suite
1212
Washington, DC 20005
