Mental health center for Ohio teens gives up its state license
A troubled mental health center for juveniles in Ohio is giving up its state license, effectively closing its doors for residential services.
Youth Intensive Services in Youngstown will move its current residents − roughly half a dozen children − to new facilities by March 28.
In July 2024, state authorities ordered the center to stop accepting new teens into the facility until it fixed problems, such as using improper restraints and inadequate staff training and background checks. That order came after a two-day inspection by the Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services.
In May 2024, Disability Rights Ohio said children sent to Youth Intensive Services are subjected to chokeholds and slaps, being pinned to the ground and verbally abused, and are regularly leaving the campus.
Disability Rights Ohio, a nonprofit organization, investigates reports of abuse or neglect of people with disabilities in state-operated, certified and licensed facilities, such as residential facilities, jails and prisons. DRO investigated problems at the Youth Intensive Services center over the course of 16 months, starting in October 2022.
“We think it’s the best outcome for protecting kids,” said Kerstin Sjoberg, director of Disability Rights Ohio. “We were concerned that they just weren’t going to be able to safely treat youth in a residential setting. So having them voluntarily relinquish the license is really the best thing that could happen.”
The Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services has licensed about 60 residential centers for at-risk children in need of therapy. Youth Intensive Services has been licensed to provide mental and behavioral health treatment to children ages 12 to 18 in Youngstown.
Child protective services agencies in multiple counties, including Stark, Carroll and Tuscarawas, send children to Youth Intensive Services.
A spokesperson for Stark County Job and Family Services said the agency does not currently have children at Youth Intensive Services, so the facility giving up its license will not impact any children served by the Children Services Division.
While no children are currently in residence there, Jamie Horey, program administrator the division, said the facility giving up its license will mean they will need to find child placements farther from Stark County.
“Even though they’re in Youngstown, as far as group homes or residential facilities go, they’re one of the closest to us,” Horey said. “We don’t have a whole lot of congregate care facilities very close to Stark County.”
That could mean children will be placed as far away as Cincinnati and Dayton.
“That’s really hard on the children and the families, because it impacts visitation, and it impacts getting them into services quickly because it’s not local to the county that they grew up in,” she said. “It impacts our case workers, because they’re having to drive half a day to go see a child, and then that takes away time that they’re working on other cases or other things to be in the car constantly.”
Includes reporting by Canton Repository staff writer Grace Springer.
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