Stop Sending Kids out of State: Ohio Needs Autism Residential Treatment Options – Reopen The Elijah Glen Center

Ohio has an inadequate number of autism specific residential treatment beds for youth with autism. The Ohio population affected are youth ages 9 to 20 with moderate to severe autism, intellectual and developmental disabilities who demonstrate high magnitude physical aggression towards self or others, putting themselves and their families in unsafe situations. Many of these youth lack the skills to effectively communicate and to self-regulate during times of frustration, anxiety and escalation. We need to educate the public and legislators about this population. We need to tell them these families are desperate to have autism specific residential treatment options located in Ohio and stop sending the youth out of state. Families also need a funding mechanism to support the treatment needed. Imagine the hardship Ohio families go through making such a hard decision on whether or not to relinquish custody to the state to access to funding for residential treatment. The Number Impacted: A calculation based on utilizing population statics, Autism Society of Ohio’s projection of Ohioans affected by autism and clinical professionals equates to 81 youth per year in need of high level of behavioral stabilization care in a residential treatment center. Please share this information with your local legislators. Maybe we could put this in as a link to learn more http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2016/03/28/parents-of-autistic-kids-who-need-residential-treatment-frustrated-by-lack-of-options.html article http://nbc4i.com/2016/02/05/families-struggle-after-autism-treatment-center-closes/ video

The Columbus Dispatch Article, By Rita Price on Monday March 28, 2016 The Steffens can’t go on a family outing to a park. Or stay with out-of-town relatives. Or, if 11-year-old Andrew is along, even stop by the grocery. “We’ve withdrawn from the community,” said Andrew’s mom, Jamie Steffen. And home isn’t exactly a refuge. It sometimes feels more like a holding cell, with alarms and locks on all the windows and doors to help keep Andrew, who has severe autism, from barreling out and causing harm to himself or others. The Steffens are among an untold number of Ohio families doing their best to care for volatile children whose developmental disabilities and mental-health disorders have led to behavioral crises. Even when doctors say residential treatment is desperately needed — Andrew’s developmental pediatrician has made that recommendation, Steffen says — parents can face a near-impossible struggle to find, or pay for, a suitable center. A last-ditch effort to save central Ohio’s only short-term residential center for children with severe autism and behavioral problems failed late last year, and the 14-bed Elijah Glen Center remains closed. Steffen, who lives in Montgomery County near Dayton, said she and her husband can’t find anything available in the state. “I might have to accept a reality where I only see him once a month,” she said, her voice breaking as she spoke of treatment for Andrew in Indiana, Virginia or Florida. Still, Steffen said, she is grateful that her husband’s military health insurance covers at least some in-home and residential care. Child-welfare advocates say families who can’t pay for behavioral-health treatment sometimes wind up relinquishing custody to public child-welfare agencies to obtain it. Medicaid covers behavioral-health services but won’t provide for the room-and-board portion of expensive residential treatment. State-run developmental centers provide residential care for adults with disabilities, not minors in crisis. “The one thing I really want to bring attention to is that if we were talking about a kid with a brain tumor, we would not be asking parents to send their kids miles away for months, nor would we be asking them to surrender custody,” Steffen said. “I know we’ve made progress with the (mental-health) parity law. But it’s not equal.” Ohio needs both a holistic approach and a funding mechanism to support behavioral-health treatment for children, said Angela Sausser, executive director of the Public Children Services Association of Ohio. In 2013, she said, six in 10 children in the custody of county agencies came into care for reasons other than abuse or neglect. Many have intense mental-health needs and disabilities, including autism, and county agencies are able to use foster-care funds to pay for care. “There are hard choices that parents are making right now,” Sausser said. A joint legislative committee is studying the problems surrounding care of so-called multi-system youth, or those who need services from more than one system — mental health and addiction, child protective services, developmental disabilities and juvenile courts. The committee is to make a series of recommendations, including ways to provide adequate funding and services. “What’s great is that we have a panel of legislators really listening,” said Marla Root of Step by Step Academy, an autism center whose Worthington campus includes the closed Elijah Glen Center. “ They’re asking good questions.” Addressing the funding problem could lead to growth in the field, advocates say. Franklin County Residential Services, a nonprofit that has been providing services and residential support for people with developmental disabilities for more than 30 years, tried to help with the Elijah Glen Center but so far hasn’t been able to develop a viable plan. Root says the center struggled and closed within a year because not enough families could find ways, short of surrendering custody, to pay for care. That leaves families such as the Steffens wondering how far they will have to go to get consistent help. The stress in their home, meanwhile, is enormous.