[Vision2020] LONG OVERDUE: Settlement reached in decades-long Idaho juvenile care case

[Saundra Lund]

I'm trying to be optimistic, which is extremely difficult given the State's
history on this issue.

 

And the next time anyone wants to negatively stereotype lawyers, please
remember Howard Belodoff.  He stuck with it for thirty-five years, and but
for his unwavering devotion and attention, there would have never been any
hope.

 

 

Saundra Lund

 

http://www.idahopress.com/news/local/settlement-reached-in-decades-long-idah
o-juvenile-care-case/article_011d8f4c-1311-11e5-9778-9397911e7f28.html

 

Settlement reached in decades-long Idaho juvenile care case

*         By BRYAN CLARK The Post Register

*          

BOISE (AP) - A decades-long legal battle over the state of child mental
health services in Idaho has ended in a settlement that will require a major
overhaul of the system.

 

It started in 1979 in Blackfoot at State Hospital South, a mental
institution where 17 children with mental disorders were housed. Child
molesters were housed there, too. There was no school, but there were
mind-numbing drugs and beds with restraints.

 

One of the children housed there at the time was a 17-year-old named Jeff D.
- a name that since has become synonymous with mental health reform in
Idaho.

 

Jeff's mother had abandoned him, and at age 2 he had watched his foster
parents beat his sister to death while they were on a berry-picking trip in
western Washington, the Spokesman-Review reported. Psychiatrists later said
they suspected the experience had irreparably scarred him.

 

When Howard Belodoff and Charlie Johnson, two attorneys barely out of law
school, discovered the conditions in which Jeff and the other children were
living, they filed a class-action lawsuit against the state. That was 1980.

 

During the next 35 years, the suit was repeatedly settled and reopened as
Belodoff accused the state of failing to live up to its end of the bargain.
Each time he won, and a new settlement was drafted.

 

Through four decades it was courtroom fisticuffs, but today, both sides have
struck a different tone. Both sides made a decision that collaborating on
solutions would work better than endless legal brawls.

 

Belodoff said this is the most optimistic he has felt during his time on the
case.

 

"I am very encouraged by the fact that the governor himself has indicated
that he recognizes and supports the agreement," Belodoff said. "That's never
happened in all the years (the case has been active)."

 

Ross Edmunds, behavioral health administrator with the Idaho Department of
Health and Welfare, agreed.

 

"It feels like for the first time the resolution between the plaintiffs and
the state has come to a collaborative process," he said.

 

Previously, the state's main concern was trying to stay out of the
courtroom, Edmunds said. But sitting down with child advocates and
collaborating to find solutions "changed the game."

 

The settlement calls for four major changes:

. Increased mental health screenings in all state agencies and institutions
that serve children.

. Creating a system of community-based mental health services.

. Engaging children's families in their care.

. Monitoring service quality and outcomes.

 

And the state will strive to integrate those services.

 

"Idaho's system has a fair amount of fracture in it right now," Edmunds
said.

 

But the new system will allow schools, social workers and children's mental
health providers to work together to provide care.

 

The "backbone of the system" primarily will be provided through Medicaid,
and treatment mostly will be provided by private mental health
practitioners, Edmunds said.

 

Idaho has nine months to design the new system, and then four years to enact
it. Edmunds said some service improvements will be available earlier than
that. He also said the state will realize a number of benefits.

 

Children who wind up in juvenile detention centers at a young age are more
likely to wind up in prison, if they don't get the kind of treatment they
need, Edmunds said. And children with serious mental health disorders have
trouble succeeding in schools, and later in the workplace, if they aren't
given skills to cope.

 

Patrick Gardner, of the Young Minds Advocacy Project, which helped to craft
the settlement agreement, said community-based services work much better
than institutionalization.

 

"The focus is to deliver services to kids in the most home-like setting
possible," he said. "So rather than making kids go to clinics or emergency
rooms, the idea is to put the services in the places that are most
convenient and most life-like. Because that's where the children have to
learn to cope and manage their challenges."

 

Belodoff said he is optimistic that the latest settlement will resolve the
issues that long have kept the lawsuit open. But there have been settlements
before, ones that didn't fix the system. Belodoff brought the suit back to
life each time he judged progress wasn't sufficient.

 

Gardner said he never has seen anything like it.

 

"His perseverance is nothing like I have seen anywhere in the country," he
said. "Because of his perseverance, we have an agreement that the state
favors and supports and will actually complete."

 

But Belodoff, while optimistic, remains vigilant.

 

"The first promises were made in 1983," Belodoff said. "To fulfill those
promises and the promises of all the agreements - to provide necessary and
crucial services to children and families who suffer from mental illness in
the state of Idaho - I hope we have their commitment that they will carry
through."

 

Belodoff's 35-year watch over the fate of mentally ill children in Idaho
will go on.

 

"I'm hopeful," he said. "We'll see."

 

As for Jeff D., Belodoff said he's not sure whether Jeff knows about the
settlement, or how much his case will change the state's child mental health
system. Belodoff doesn't know where he is.

Jeff spent years on the streets after leaving the mental hospital, drifting
from Spokane to Salt Lake City, toothless, sometimes forced to eat from
dumpsters, the Spokesman Review reported when they tracked him down in 2002.

 

He could be in Boise or maybe Spokane, Belodoff said. He might be dead.

 

 

 

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