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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoPlainText>I’m trying to be optimistic, which is extremely difficult given the State’s history on this issue.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>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.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Saundra Lund<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><a href="http://www.idahopress.com/news/local/settlement-reached-in-decades-long-idaho-juvenile-care-case/article_011d8f4c-1311-11e5-9778-9397911e7f28.html">http://www.idahopress.com/news/local/settlement-reached-in-decades-long-idaho-juvenile-care-case/article_011d8f4c-1311-11e5-9778-9397911e7f28.html</a><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:7.5pt'><span lang=EN style='font-size:27.0pt;font-family:Bitter;color:#333333'>Settlement reached in decades-long Idaho juvenile care case<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:0in;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1'><![if !supportLists]><span lang=EN style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Symbol;color:#333333'><span style='mso-list:Ignore'>·<span style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'> </span></span></span><![endif]><span lang=EN style='font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:#333333'>By BRYAN CLARK The Post Register<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:0in;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1'><![if !supportLists]><span lang=EN style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Symbol;color:#333333'><span style='mso-list:Ignore'>·<span style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'> </span></span></span><![endif]><span lang=EN style='font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:#333333'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN>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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN>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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN>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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN>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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN>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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN>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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN>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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN>Belodoff said this is the most optimistic he has felt during his time on the case.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN>“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).”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN>Ross Edmunds, behavioral health administrator with the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, agreed.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN>“It feels like for the first time the resolution between the plaintiffs and the state has come to a collaborative process,” he said.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN>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.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><strong><span lang=EN style='font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:#333333'><o:p> </o:p></span></strong></p><p class=MsoNormal><strong><span lang=EN style='font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:#333333'>The settlement calls for four major changes:</span></strong><span lang=EN><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='text-indent:.5in'><span lang=EN>• Increased mental health screenings in all state agencies and institutions that serve children.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='text-indent:.5in'><span lang=EN>• Creating a system of community-based mental health services.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='text-indent:.5in'><span lang=EN>• Engaging children’s families in their care.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='text-indent:.5in'><span lang=EN>• Monitoring service quality and outcomes.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN>And the state will strive to integrate those services.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN>“Idaho’s system has a fair amount of fracture in it right now,” Edmunds said.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN>But the new system will allow schools, social workers and children’s mental health providers to work together to provide care.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN>The “backbone of the system” primarily will be provided through Medicaid, and treatment mostly will be provided by private mental health practitioners, Edmunds said.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN>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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN>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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN>Patrick Gardner, of the Young Minds Advocacy Project, which helped to craft the settlement agreement, said community-based services work much better than institutionalization.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN>“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.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN>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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN>Gardner said he never has seen anything like it.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN>“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.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN>But Belodoff, while optimistic, remains vigilant.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN>“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.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN>Belodoff’s 35-year watch over the fate of mentally ill children in Idaho will go on.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN>“I’m hopeful,” he said. “We’ll see.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN>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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN>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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN>He could be in Boise or maybe Spokane, Belodoff said. He might be dead.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p></div></body></html>