The U.S. Department of Justice announced an agreement Friday with Nevada in which the state promised to improve services for children who have behavioral health disabilities.
In 2022, the DOJ released the results of an investigation , finding that “Nevada does not provide its children with behavioral health disabilities with adequate community-based services.”
It threatened to sue under the Americans with Disabilities Act if the state didn’t shape up.
The new agreement ends that threat, although the DOJ did file a complaint Thursday against Nevada in federal court with the stipulation that the court shouldn’t do anything for now, but that if Nevada doesn’t live up to its promises, the complaint will move forward.
“The State fails to ensure appropriate discharge planning from residential treatment facilities and hospitals to prevent unnecessarily long stays and readmissions to these settings,” the DOJ complaint says. “As a result of these failures, hundreds of Nevada’s children are forced to enter hospitals and residential treatment facilities. Once admitted, children can sometimes stay in these settings much longer than necessary or appropriate because of a lack of adequate community-based services available to them upon discharge.”