Minnesota children with complex mental health needs often languish in juvenile detention or emergency rooms because there aren’t enough beds in residential treatment facilities. From the Star Tribune:
Although the number of kids entering the juvenile justice or social services systems with complex needs has grown in recent years, the number of licensed residential treatment facility beds for children has shrunk by more than a third since 2005.
Few new ones have emerged to fill the gap for juveniles who require the kind of intensive therapy not available through community-based programs, or those who have absconded from lower-level facilities.
