residential treatment

Legislation calling for better oversight of youth residential treatment centers was introduced in both chambers of Congress today.

Alaska’s overuse of residential treatment for youth with behavioral health challenges likely violates the ADA, the Justice Department finds.

Alaska has amended court rules to allow foster youth the ability to attend hearings and have attorneys argue their own wishes in their cases.

Congress approved legislation in 2018 that will reduce federal spending on group homes and institutions. Since that law was signed, several investigative stories in our pages and others around the country have exposed the shortcomings that prompted it. 

Each year, thousands of foster children in Texas are shuffled into little-known “treatment centers” where they are frequently neglected and abused. State officials have largely ignored allegations of wrongdoing and calls for reform.

People talk a lot about how important it is that every foster kid grows up in a loving home. While well intentioned, most of them are approaching that idea from an abstract understanding.

Early one Saturday morning in September, Jacob McCleary, then 15, got into his aunt and uncle’s van, headed for the Santa Fe Springs office of the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS).

Bills were introduced this week on Capitol Hill that would help build the evidence base of family drug treatment programs, and prioritize federal education assistance for foster and homeless youth. Sens.