State-Run Adolescent Psychiatrist Facility Would Save Money
(KFOR NEWS December 20, 2021) (AP) – A new analysis has found that Nebraska could save money and keep the state’s most troubled youths closer to home by starting a state-run adolescent psychiatric facility.
The Omaha World-Herald reports that the analysis was presented to the Legislature’s Youth Rehabilitation and Treatment Special Oversight Committee on Friday.
Karen Chinn, a consultant who worked on the study, said Nebraska youths are going to other states because private, in-state treatment programs will not take them.
Such youths are typically teens with aggressive and violent behavior who have experienced trauma and out of home placement from an early age.
She said Nebraska sent between 39 and 74 such youths to states as far away as Tennessee and South Carolina every year from 2015 through this year. The cost of doing so was $9.1 million in 2019.
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