Indiana Prosecutor Attempts Bold Move to Help Girl Receive Mental Health Services

Bob Cline, chief deputy prosecutor in Morgan County, has encountered three cases in the past 18 months in which the child needs mental health services, not punishment. He was not receiving help from DCS.

“Advocates for children across the state say that response is becoming a growing problem in Indiana. And some contend the issue comes down to DCS not wanting to spend the money to help children with costly mental health issues, not even at a time when the agency has returned millions of “surplus” dollars to the state treasury.

A DCS spokeswoman denied money plays any role in the approach to working with troubled children. Stephanie McFarland said the agency’s goal is finding the best solution to get services for children, such as those in the Morgan County cases, while helping them maintain a healthy relationship with their parents.

Cline isn’t buying it. Neither is a Morgan County judge who wrote in a court order that he had “serious questions about whether DCS is in fact doing what they are supposed to be doing to help” children with mental health issues.

Morgan Circuit Judge Matthew Hanson added “it would seem the DCS is simply waiting around until the child commits such egregious or dangerous acts that the (juvenile delinquent) system has no choice but to file charges against the child . . . and then the DCS can simply ignore any pleas thereafter to aid such a  child.”

In Clines’ cases, the inaction of DCS forced him into just that predicament.

He grudgingly decided in each case to push the child into the state’s juvenile justice system, a move that would provide the children at least some shot at the treatment they critically needed.

“It really got to me,” Cline said, “because the only  reason we filed (juvenile charges) was because these kids and their families needed help, and there were no  other options.”

But when a fourth case recently came his way, Cline resolved to find help for the young girl without labeling her a delinquent.

He again reached out to DCS hoping the agency would step up under its statutory mandate to assist children who are a threat to themselves or others. Cline had watched a video of the girl slamming her head against a car. What he saw convinced him the girl met that threshold.

Despite at least seven calls to the statewide DCS hotline and Cline’s personal pleas to local DCS staff, the agency refused to get involved.

Frustrated, Cline filed a juvenile delinquency petition, just as he had in the earlier cases, as a stopgap measure.

But then Cline tried something else: He took DCS to court.”

 

He filed a legal motion called a CHINS(Child in Need of Services) 6 which is “covers nonvictim  children who are “substantially endangering (their)  own or another’s health.”

There is one very important difference between a  CHINS 6 and other types of CHINS cases. A CHINS 6   designation does not require a finding of abuse or  neglect on the part of a parent.”

DCS responded with filing their “own CHINS petition on the girl.  But it wasn’t a CHINS 6 and, as such, DCS will not    intervene on behalf of the girl unless the agency determines abuse or neglect on the part of her  parents, and that’s not something anyone has alleged.

Hanson called DCS’ action “nothing more than a  disingenuous attempt to avoid the hearing” that would  be public. But on the very specific legal issue in  front of him, Hanson felt his hands were tied.

In his ruling issued last week, Hanson ruled that Cline did not have the authority to file the CHINS 6  petition. Hanson also approved a DCS request to transfer its CHINS filing to another judge — but not  before laying out a stinging critique of the agency.”

Pamela McConey, executive director of the National Alliance of Mental Health Indiana “said she is aware of similar struggles in Delaware, St. Joseph, Porter and Wayne counties.

“A kid shouldn’t have to go to jail to get mental health services, and parents should not be labeled as neglectful because they don’t have the resources or ability to get their children the help they need,” she said. “The system is broken, and we are putting some of our most vulnerable residents at risk.”

Some critics contend the agency’s stance is part of a strategy that, at least on its surface, appears to put money and procedure ahead of helping children.

Miami County Prosecutor Bruce Embry has struggled with the same issue as Cline.

“It is all about money,” he said. “Why do we have to fight our own state bureaucracy to get help for these kids?”

While mental health professionals and prosecutors see CHINS 6 as an important tool in helping troubled children, DCS officials pushed legislation in the General Assembly this year to eliminate the CHINS 6 category. Backlash from mental health professionals, children’s advocates and judges temporarily scuttled the proposal, but it will be reviewed this summer by a legislative study commission. The panel also will look at whether prosecutors should be allowed to file CHINS 6 petitions.

In the meantime, according to advocates, DCS has become increasingly reluctant to use the designation to help children.

“Indiana does not have adequate mental health services for children,” McConey said. “CHINS 6 is the only opportunity many families have to get treatment for their kids.”

Even those with private insurance can find themselves in a bind, she said, because policies often cap mental health coverage. She said that has forced some families to mortgage their homes to pay for care that can cost $200 a day.

What is particularly galling, McConey and other advocates say, is that DCS seems to have taken such a hard-line stance at a time when it returned millions of dollars that lawmakers gave the agency to help children. In 2011, DCS sent back more than $100 million, and since 2009 the agency has handed back more than $320 million.”

“Cathleen Graham, a former state child welfare official who now serves as executive director of IARCCA, An Association of Children & Family Services, said the current approach by DCS is putting children at risk and will only add to the state’s financial burden in the future.”

Mentally ill kids caught in Catch-22

[The Indianapolis Star 5/24/12 by Tim Evans]

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