A 2021 lawsuit against the state of Alabama over the state’s practice of unnecessarily institutionalizing children with mental health disabilities in psychiatric residential treatment facilities, PRTFs, appears to be coming to a close after a preliminary settlement agreement was reached late last week.
The lawsuit, brought against the state by the Alabama Disabilities Advocacy Program, Children’s Rights and the Southern Poverty Law Center, SPLC, accuses the Alabama Department of Human Resources, DHR, of violating the Americans with Disabilities Act, ADA, by “isolating children in highly rigid and often dangerous settings instead of meeting their mental health needs in a loving home or community-based setting.”
The plaintiffs cited research showing that children placed in PRTFs experience worse life outcomes than their non-institutionalized peers, with experts who testified in the case finding that Alabama’s failure to require standardized clinical assessments led to children being improperly institutionalized, resulting in worsened conditions rather than improvements…