LET MENTALLY ILL KIDS STAY HOME FOR CARE, JUDGE SAYS.

Byline: Troy Anderson Staff Writer

In a landmark decision that could affect thousands of mentally ill children in California psychiatric hospitals and group facilities, a federal judge has ordered the state to provide services in their homes and communities.

In his ruling this week in Los Angeles, U.S. District Judge A. Howard Matz ordered the state to provide two key home and community services for the children - ``wraparound'' services and therapeutic care - and said there is ``substantial evidence'' it will save the state money. Under a ``wraparound'' plan, a child receives coordinated services in a family setting from a variety of agencies.

More than 80,000 children are living in foster homes in California, with up to 84 percent having experienced a mental-health problem, according to some estimates. The state currently addresses the needs through institutional care - spending $540 million a year to maintain 4,500 children in high-level group-home placements.

Public-interest law firms had challenged the practice in 2003, filing a class-action suit alleging the state and counties treat children with serious mental-health problems in restrictive group homes and psychiatric hospitals rather than treat them at home.

``This order is a tremendous victory for California's most vulnerable children and should lead to major restructuring of how mental health services are delivered to foster youth,'' Western Center on Law & Poverty attorney Robert Newman said Wednesday.

``Children will receive services in their homes and communities, as opposed to being needlessly confined in institutional settings.''

Melinda Bird, managing attorney of Protection & Advocacy Inc. in Los Angeles, said the question now is whether state and county officials will rethink outdated policies.

``Or ... will they continue with business as usual, removing children needlessly from their homes and wasting money on services that often do not work?'' Bird said.

State Department of Social Services spokeswoman Shirley Washington said Wednesday that officials were still reviewing the previous day's ruling and could not comment on what steps would be taken.

Matz, in his order granting a motion for a preliminary injunction, said states that have begun using home-care programs - where children's services, mental health and welfare officials work together to address a child's particular needs - have reduced the number of foster youths abused in the system and the total number in foster homes.

After the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services began using the programs and taking other steps to reform the system in 2002, the number of children in foster homes dropped from 30,000 then to 22,400 now.

The department also saw a 23 percent decrease in the abuse of children in foster care during that time, DCFS Director David Sanders said. In the same period, the number of substantiated reports of child abuse and neglect in the community dropped by 6 percent, Sanders said.

``The court heard from the leading experts in the field that wraparound and (therapeutic foster care), provided in a family setting, can turn around a child's negative trajectory and produce virtual miracles,'' said Ira Burnim, legal director of the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, a national advocacy group.

However, without appropriate services, children with mental disabilities bounce between foster-home placements and group homes, said Patrick Gardner, an attorney with the National Center for Youth Law in Oakland.

``When their worsening mental condition renders them `unplaceable,' they are abandoned to languish in institutions or pushed into the juvenile justice system,'' Gardner said.

There are 20,000 youths in Los Angeles County's delinquency system, 30 percent of whom have a history with the DCFS.

Troy Anderson, [phone]

troy.anderson(at)dailynews.com