DCYF was warned about leaving kids in psychiatric hospitals for months. Here's a look back.

Tom Mooney, Providence Journal
Updated ·3 min read
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Years before the U.S. Attorney's Office and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Civil Rights found that the Rhode Island Department of Children, Youth & Families was violating the civil rights of children with mental-health or developmental disabilities by leaving them in psychiatric hospitals for months rather than getting them out-patient or residential care, officials were warned that this very practice could lead to the state getting into legal hot water.

Warning that the state would face a discrimination case

Family Court Chief Judge Michael B. Forte, in October 2021, told a Senate oversight committee that the state could someday face legal consequences for its lack of psychiatric treatment centers for girls.

At the time, Forte said the state could face a sex-discrimination case.

“I believe DCYF is guilty of systematic sex discrimination in failing to provide comparable services and placements for girls as it does for boys,” the judge said at the time.

Forte described having to send girls out of state for treatment, and even scoured vacant buildings around the state looking for adequate space to house a new inpatient treatment program.

Bradley Hospital
Bradley Hospital

St. Mary's School for Children

St. Mary's School for Children was eventually chosen for an $11-million addition to add 12 beds to its inpatient psychiatric program for children.

In early 2024, however, a scathing report by the Office of the Child Advocate following an eight-month investigation found instances of children being restrained, assaulted and even overdosing on drugs at the facility.

The St. Mary's addition is still moving forward.

Behind the scenes: Court cases show kids left at Bradley Hospital for months

In April, The Providence Journal published a story about two court cases that demonstrated the practice that U.S. Attorney for Rhode Island Zachary Cunha likened to "warehousing" children with mental-health issues in psychiatric and other hospitals.

  • One case involved a girl who was admitted to Hasbro Children's Hospital for 150 days after the state failed to find an inpatient placement for her, not only in Rhode Island but anywhere in the country. She had originally been admitted after assaulting her mother and after months of being in the hospital with little treatment and no schooling, she was eventually discharged back to her mother.

  • A second case involved a teenage girl struggling with self-harm who was admitted to Bradley Hospital. After 30 referrals, DCYF was able to find only one facility in New Hampshire with a months-long waiting list that could take her in. Seven months later, she was discharged from Bradley Hospital and sent home, only to be re-admitted two months later after attempting suicide.

In both cases, the state argued that it could not comply with a judge's order to place the girls in a treatment facility because the state lacked the beds and the capacity to do so.

More: 'A complete failure': The plight of 2 teens lays bare the absence of mental health care for girls

What the U.S. Attorney's Office found

An investigation conducted by the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Rhode Island and the United States Department of Health and Human Services Office of Civil Rights (HHS OCR) found:

  • 527 children who were in DCYF care from January 1, 2017, through September 30, 2022 had been hospitalized at Bradley Hospital for more than 100 consecutive days.

  • 42 children were hospitalized for more than 180 days

  • 7 children were hospitalized for more than a year

“That’s time with no meaningful access to family, friends, the comforts of home, the chance to play outside to go school – to be a kid instead of a patient in a locked ward," said Cunha.

Cunha described DCYF's practice as essentially warehousing children at a "psychiatric institution, rather than stepping up to provide the community care, support, and services that these kids need, and that the law requires."

More: 'Appalling': Feds accuse RI DCYF of 'warehousing' children at Bradley Hospital. What to know.

Journal reporters Tom Mooney and Katie Mulvaney contributed to this report

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: What led to the U.S. Attorney investigating RI DCYF? Here's the background.