March 31, 2024
This is the first in a three-part series investigating North Carolina’s psychiatric residential treatment facilities where children with complex behavioral needs are sent for care.
When children with severe mood or behavior disorders require intense therapeutic care, they can end up in one of the state’s two dozen psychiatric residential treatment facilities. Operators of these facilities, commonly known as PRTFs, say they stabilize children and provide trauma-informed care that lets them return to their communities on a track toward healing.
But a review of hundreds of inspection reports, as well as interviews with families and experts familiar with the inner workings of these facilities, tells a dramatically different story.
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- Case Name
- Timothy B. v. Kinsley
- Status
- Active
Children’s Rights, Disability Rights North Carolina (DRNC), North Carolina Chapter NAACP State Conference (NC NAACP), and Moore & Van Allen filed Timothy B. v. Kinsley against the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) for its pervasive, system-wide practice of unnecessarily warehousing children with disabilities in foster care in dangerous, locked psychiatric institutions—sometimes sending them out of state, hundreds of miles away from their families and communities.
Child Health, Families Together, Government Accountability, Racial Justice
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